


Mors Tua, Vita Mea

by furaleii



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: BAMF Will Graham, Blood Kink, Blood and Violence, Bottom Will Graham, Corruption, Dark Will, Dark Will Graham, Dom/sub, Dom/sub Undertones, Dry Humping, Dubious Consent, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter is Whipped, Light Bondage, M/M, Manipulative Hannibal Lecter, Murder, Murder Husbands, Oral Sex, Past Abuse, Priest Kink, Priest Will Graham, Priests, Rape/Non-con Elements, Restraints, Slow Burn, Top Hannibal Lecter, Vampire Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham Doesn't Care, Will Graham Finds Out, Will Graham Loves Dogs, Will Graham Loves Hannibal Lecter, he's also secretly a teddy bear, will doesn't get encephalitis, writing hannibals dialogue is really hard im not at all metaphorical
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:28:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 38,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27809107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furaleii/pseuds/furaleii
Summary: "your death, my life"Will Graham is a priest who enjoys taking his dogs on walks and steadily ignoring his consistently darker thoughts. Hannibal Lecter is a cannibalistic serial killer, who's also a vampire, and takes an immediate liking to Will.Will, despite knowing something evil is working away in Hannibal's mind, can't stay away. Chaos ensues.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 84
Kudos: 228





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started this while stuck in my dorm for quarantine as a way to procrastinate doing my homework. It's, therefore, probably not very good, but I've enjoyed writing it, and it's good practice.
> 
> I'll admit I'm mainly posting this as an attempt to get over my irrational fear of anyone reading my writing, out of my need for it to be perfect and exactly how I want-- although, that doesn't happen very often. I was expecting this to be a couple thousand words at most, but I just kind of... kept writing, so I decided to post it here as a multi-chapter story.
> 
> Anyhow, now that we're done with that-- I hope you guys enjoy! I love these boys and their terribly unhealthy relationship, both canon and not, and I cannot wait to share with y'all.

Will grips his rosary tight in his fist. He hadn't prepared a sermon for today-- he didn't normally preach at this mass. Brother Roman did. He, however, was indisposed, and therefore couldn't preach for today's mass No one would actually tell him what exactly that indisposition was, just that it wasn't major, and not to worry. 

This was extremely unfortunate, because Will _needed_ to practice for his sermons beforehand. He's not exactly the most sociable person, even in the comfort of his own church, before his altar. He's been obsessively rehearsing it for the past hour, and he's supposed to walk into the nave in... well, now.

He walks up to the pulpit behind the altar, looking out among the pews. _Large crowd. Way too large._ His days tend to be fairly consistent, with the same people every time. He's sure this time of mass is the same way, but he knows almost none of these people. He's never met the majority of them in his lifetime, other than the few elders who he swears shows up to every sermon every day. His eyes scan the crowd, picking out those who are simple, and unproblematic. Those that, because of how purely uninteresting they are, are easy to make eye contact with throughout. That is when his empathy can come in handy every week-- seeking out those who aren't interesting, have no pulp-- middle class, suburban families. Mothers with yoga on Thursday and kids who play soccer after school. Who go to church singularly to keep their reputation in the neighborhood.

 _This won't be too bad_ , he thinks. _There are_ lots _of uninteresting families here today._

He starts speaking-- explaining that Brother roman isn't here this week, and no you don't have to worry, this change will not be permanent. He chooses Isaiah 41:10 as this week's homily.

"So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God," his eyes roam the crowd, and he finds himself catching eyes with someone. A man. Most people don't look him directly in the eyes during the service, instead preferring to bow their heads in prayer; the sudden eye contact is distracting. He stutters. "I will--" he clears his throat and tries again. "I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." He pauses for a moment, breathing in and letting out a large exhale, before continuing on with his speech.

"The words 'fear not' appear in the Bible three hundred and sixty-six times. Faith in His word is what He desires of us all, and He warns that unless we trust His word, we can't please Him. However, God is gracious. He knows that doubts and discouragement happen because of many reasons in our lives, and so He expands His words with words of comfort that emphasize his love and care." He continues on with his speech, refusing to remake eye contact with the strange man in a suit, even though he can feel his eyes continuing to stare him down. Something about the man made Will extremely uncomfortable, and he was getting more and more unsettled by the second.

He continued the rest of his sermon without pause or mistake, mainly staring at the two families in the front-most pew. They were the easiest to look at-- stay at home wives with straight brown hair, husbands who have a drinking problem but wouldn't admit it. Kids who bully other kids on the playground for not being exactly like them, and who have dreams of being professional football players when they grow up. Will knows they're only there out of necessity-- they don't genuinely care that much about the Lord at all, and none of them are really paying much attention to the sermon. They nod their heads at moments they deem appropriate, and stare off into space for the rest of it. They're easy to look at, and unthreatening.

After the sermon is over, he goes down to the pews to socialize for a couple of minutes. It's probably his least favorite part of the service-- acting approachable, listening to people complain about doubts or obstacles, giving advice. He's gotten pretty good at faking to enjoy these people, but it's still a chore.

He's in the middle of explaining why it's okay for an old woman to forget to do her nightly prayer because of a sudden heart attack from her husband, when the intimidating man from before walks up to him and patiently waits for him to be finished speaking, before politely interrupting the conversation. Will is almost grateful, if he weren't desperately thinking out how to get away without seeming like he was purposefully avoiding the man. 

When, in a couple of seconds, he can't think of a good enough reason, he instead turns to the man and regards him in-- what he hopes-- is an openly friendly and approachable way. The man, wearing an impeccable dark green suit with thin white pinstripes, looks to be around six or seven years older than Will himself, his hair perfectly styled, not a strand out of place. His eyes were disturbingly empty, not one emotion showing through except interest and perhaps a bit of respectful amusement. Something about the perfect appearance and intelligent yet deeply empty eyes unsettled Will. Something was wrong with this man-- something dark and enticingly beautiful, and _evil_. Will couldn't quite place his finger on what that evil was, the man was too guarded to be able to tell, but he knew it was there.

"I don't often preach at this hour," inquires Will. "Are you here every week? I haven't seen you here before." He puts on an open smile; one he uses for everyone at the church, no matter how unsettling or bothersome or fake they are. 

"No, I don't believe we have met. I've just recently moved here," he sticks his hand out in greeting. "Doctor Lecter. It's a pleasure to meet you, Father."

Will shakes his hand and returns the greeting. "Doctor, eh? What kind of doctor?" He hasn't ever really had any good luck with many doctors, he thinks, but he's much too polite to voice that thought.

"Psychiatry. I was a surgeon, but I felt the need for a change in occupation. Plus, I've always been deeply interested in the mind." _Ugh, a shrink. That's even worse._ However, he hasn't started psychoanalyzing Will yet, so he forces himself to keep from being too defensive.

"So, Doctor Lecter-- what made you move down here? I admit, we don't see many new faces very often." A small smirk, mysterious but kind, graces the doctor's lips.

"Just needed a bit of scenery change, I'm afraid. It seems like I've been in Lithuania for _centuries,_ " he chuckles. His voice conveys a hint of amusement, as if he's sharing an amusing secret, and Will only became more unnerved and intensely interested. He looked away, glancing at any other face as an excuse to avoid eye contact with Lecter's impossibly deeply amber eyes, pinpoints of bright red glittering throughout. "Not fond of eye contact, are you?"

"Eyes are distracting," Will says after a moment of pause, forcing his eyes to briefly meet the doctor's again, before fluttering away once more. "You see too much, you don't see enough... you think-- 'wow, those whites are really white,' or 'he must have hepatitis,' or 'is that a burst vein?'" He stops, realizing he had been rambling, and breathes in a deep sigh. "So... yeah."

"Eyes show the deepest and darkest parts of the human soul. It can be unnerving to regard someone and notice something unpleasant in their depths." Says Doctor Lecter, fully smiling now, a tight-lipped, rarely used thing. He was obviously hiding something. It wouldn't be noticeable to the regular human, but it has been a long while since Will has regarded himself as regular.

 _Yeah, everyone's eyes but yours_ , he thinks. Nothing was showing in Doctor Lecter's eyes, and maybe that was what truly unsettles Will the most. He's used to being able to tell someone's whole life story just by glancing at them-- meeting someone like the doctor who doesn't show anything other than exactly what he wants to show is relaxing, and disconcerting. 

The doctor's smile gets wider, almost like he heard what Will had said and found it amusing, and for a split second he thought he had said it out loud, but he couldn't have. Lecter didn't say anything about it, either, so it was most likely just coincidental. 

Will realizes he's been staring instead of responding. "Well, it was wonderful to meet you, Doctor Lecter. I've got to make my way to the confessional, but I hope to see you in the future." He gave the doctor his normal preaching times, and exits with a stumble from almost running into the lady who was standing oddly close to him, and who, when she realized Will was finished speaking to the doctor, ambushed him with her own introduction. It made Will almost laugh, and he had to refrain himself when he turned back and saw the obvious disdain from the man, whose eyes were downcast and looking at the lady's hand firmly grasped on his forearm. _At least he does show_ some _emotions,_ he thinks, _even if it was because he was ambushed by an old lady_. 

Doctor Lecter, once again seemingly somehow hearing him, looks up and meets Will's eyes. He gives him a cool, collected smirk before turning and entertaining the old lady with charm and intelligence. 

Will walks off, sitting in the confession booth where he listens to prepubescent boys and elderly women. He doesn't think he ever actually hears them; his mind is somewhere else entirely. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gotta be honest, not very happy with this chapter-- It's pretty much just unnecessary filling, and I don't think it flows very well, but it does go into a small amount of detail with Will's first thoughts on Hannibal, so I decided to keep it anyway. The chapters only get longer from here, folks. I believe this is the shortest one that I have written so far. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Will wasn’t expecting to see Doctor Lecter this soon. He wasn’t expecting to see him at all, really, but definitely not only a week later. He was back to his normal preaching times—turns out Brother Roman just caught a case of the flu and didn’t want to risk being around his flock.

When he had told the doctor his regular sermon times, it was purely out of courtesy and respect. He hadn’t expected the doctor to show up, on the dot, not a minute early nor late. He was, once again, staring intently at Will, ignoring everything else surrounding him, and making Will stumble through his introduction.

Will, once again, resolutely ignored him throughout the entire sermon, only meeting eyes with him briefly every couple of minutes to make it seem like he wasn’t purposefully avoiding him. That wouldn’t be a very respectable thing to do, as a priest.

Even as he turned his head away from the doctor, he could still feel eyes staring him down. It was unnerving. Something about the empty stare of those eyes was _wrong_. Will couldn’t put his finger on it—which was new for him, and just as unsettling. He was used to being able to read someone from just a glance, yet when he looked at Doctor Lecter, he only saw what the doctor clearly wanted him to see. No more, no less. He didn’t like it, yet he couldn’t help but be curious what the doctor was _really_ feeling when he looked at Will. Or when his eyes showed no emotion at all, like how they were now. Nothing but emptiness and a black void shown in those eyes, and yet Will knew that couldn’t be what he was actually feeling—no one was that empty. It was just a mask, and he couldn’t help but want to peel the mask back and see who was really under it. At the same time, a small part of him hoped he never had to see what was under it. He had a feeling that it wasn’t exactly the most holy thing.

_He couldn’t help what he truly wanted to see. It’s just curiosity, is all._

He spends the rest of the sermon in a daze; by the end of it, he’s honestly not even sure what he said, but his flock seem to be satisfied. He walks off of the pulpit down in-between the pews for his weekly post-sermon socialization, and spends a couple of minutes talking to a nice elderly couple, who promises to bring him a pie next week despite his rule of not accepting gifts from people from the church. They ignore him, changing the subject quickly enough that he’s not even sure if they actually heard him, and then they run off before he can refuse their baking once more. It’s enough to make him need to take a couple seconds to regain his mask of polite indifference and openness; refusing that many times despite being completely ignored took a lot of energy, and his sociality is very limited to begin with.

He tries to not look in the direction of Doctor Lecter, although his eyes keep subconsciously straying to the right side of the church, where he was sitting. He couldn’t see him anymore, so the doctor was no longer sitting in the pews—perhaps he left.

For some reason, Will is unnecessarily frustrated at that. He hadn’t even said hello to him.

 _He isn’t obligated to talk to you,_ Will thinks. _He probably had somewhere else to go, or just wasn’t interested in making conversation. It’s not a big deal._

He doesn’t have time to process reasons why he might be upset over this fact, and why it does indeed feel like a very big deal to him, because before he can, he feels a presence coming up behind him, patiently waiting for him to finish talking to a teenage boy who looks _very_ uninterested in what he has to say.

He, of course, knows exactly who it is behind him. No one else at this service has the same mysterious, confident, and intelligent aura as Doctor Lecter does.

Will only gets a _small_ amount of satisfaction at seeing the teenage boy roll his eyes while walking off. He told him exactly what he didn’t want to hear, and exactly what he knew the boy’s parents have been telling him for weeks. He feels the small, smug grin that he wears while he turns around to face Doctor Lecter, who has a bit of amusement shining in his eyes, but nothing else in his face to show his amusement. Still, Will is grateful for what he can see, because humor is much preferred to the empty, dark stare he was feeling earlier.

“Doctor Lecter, it’s wonderful to see you again! Honestly, I wasn’t expecting to see you back so soon.” He says it to just be respectful, but Will finds that he is genuinely happy to see the doctor again so soon. He decides not to think about it.

“I wanted to see you preach again. Your sermons are truly something to behold, Father. I find myself entranced by them.” he looks up at this, straight into Doctor Lecter’s eyes, and sees nothing that hints to him that he’s telling anything but the truth. He decides not to think about that either.

“Well, doctor, I’m really not sure what to say about that other than thank you,” he laughs softly, trying (and failing, though he’ll never admit it), to not feel too much pride about his work. “I’m glad my words speak to you. That is what I aim for—it’s nice seeing it seemingly working.” He finds himself smiling, and tries to tramp it down a little bit, but can’t seem to reduce it to anything less than a pleased grin. That will have to work for now.

“Of course. Your sermons, the few that I have been to, have already spoken to me quite deeply. Your voice resonates in my mind, and I find myself less bored than I have been in centuries.” The doctor gives Will a thin smile, and Will wishes he could see it more often (Not thinking about it. Definitely not thinking about it). The joke makes Will chuckle, and the doctor seems pleased to be making Will smile so much during their short conversation. He’s got to be honest; it’s been a while that someone has made him smile so much in such a short amount of time.

They continue talking for a short time about small things; Doctor Lecter’s practice, his preference for scalpels to sharpen pencils. Will’s preference for having his own house in Wolf Trap, rather than live in the rectory of the parish like the majority of the other priests. He’s not quite sure how they got on to these topics, all he knows is that the conversation flows so well and feels so comfortable that he finds himself making eye contact with the doctor more than he’s made with anybody else for years. He also finds himself genuinely enjoying the conversation, which is completely rare in itself, and being upset when it was his time to go to the confessional.

“I hope to see you again next week, Doctor Lecter.” He says, holding out his hand for the doctor to shake.

“I will be here. And please, Father, call me Hannibal.” The doctor says while reciprocating the handshake. Will isn’t on first name basis with any of the members of the church, but he can’t help but play the word around in his mind. It feels right to call him that, much more right than the overly formal title of Doctor Lecter.

“As you wish, then, Hannibal. See you next week.” He gives one more small smile to the doctor as he is turning away, and feels rather than sees the smile be returned back to him.

The rest of the day flies by in a blur, going home, spending time with his dogs, eating his small and almost pitiful meal of leftover baked chicken; all the while thinking of Hannibal and their conversation. He sleeps fairly well, for once; his nightmare was manageable and he was able to fall back asleep after, which doesn’t happen very often.

Will wakes up the next morning, feeling lighter on his toes than he has in months, and feeds the dogs. He decides to go into the parish, early enough that no one will have been there yet. It’s one of his favorite times to go—the other priests and the nuns are still sleeping, and he gets the nave all to himself.

It’s peaceful—or, rather, it’s supposed to be. Which is why, when he walks through the church doors and he sees a young girl hanging from the cross behind the altar, he’s terrified and confused and traumatized, but mainly he’s just really _angry_ that somebody had to go and interrupt his peace.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a reupload, I noticed that I had completely skipped multiple paragraphs. I apologize!! 
> 
> Some description of murder in this chapter, so y'all have been warned. Although, considering this is a Hannibal fic and I'm sure you looked at the tabs, it was probably expected. A bit of Hannibal's point of view, as well, which was fairly difficult to write, and I wasn't originally planning on having his POV at all, but I wanted him to be able to tell his side of the story and his feelings a bit.
> 
> Enjoy!

The local police have come and gone, and now the FBI was here, keeping Will from enjoying his—attempted—peaceful morning.

Jack Crawford, the head of the forensics team that was assessing the crime scene, seemed overly interested in Will and wouldn’t stop asking him questions that were much too in-depth and personal to be normal for a regular witness. His loud, bolstering voice was supposed to sound intimidating and confident, but it really just made Will want to tear his hair out and walk off in a fit of frustrated rage. Luckily, a pretty girl with long brown hair called Jack over, and they were over near the body talking in hushed tones.

Will looked over at the body. It really was a peculiar thing, something he’s never seen before. It was obviously meant to be an art piece, beautiful and horrific and entrancingly terrible.

The girl, a young one with long brown hair and light freckles, hung on the cross like the son of the Lord himself. Her hands were nailed through the wood of the cross, blood dripping down off her palms and onto the floor below. Her face hung down, hair clearly brushed and framed perfectly around her head to show off her face, eyes open and staring empty and dead into the far wall across from her. The capillaries had burst, making them a deep red and even more haunting than normal.

She was naked, although the amount of blood and other decorum made up for the lack of clothes. Her throat had been cut, blood dripping down elegantly past her breasts all the way down, the puddle under showing just how much she had bled.

Her stomach had been cleanly sliced open after death. Intestines purposefully pulled out until they were hanging down, and red roses had been arranged inside the gaping cut. It gave the appearance that the roses were the one’s dripping with blood and guts, rather than her stomach. Her ankles were wrapped in a couple feet of barbed wire.

He could distantly hear someone screaming—a nun, perhaps, or maybe someone who had come early for daily mass. He didn’t _really_ hear it though; he was too focused on the pendulum swinging behind his eyes, subconsciously mapping out the entirety of the murder and putting himself in the situation as the killer.

He had taken her by surprise, perhaps while she was in the middle of prayer, and strangled her to the point of unconsciousness. While she was still unconscious, he had hung her up—he wasn’t going to tie her legs down, but she had woken up while he was nailing her hands to the cross, and he had no choice. The deep cuts on her ankles showed that she had attempted to move them, but the barbs in the wire kept her stable. He cut her throat, then, and caught the majority of the spray with himself, until it was slowly dripping down her body. After she was dead, he sliced into her stomach cleanly—a surgeon, perhaps, or someone who went to medical school—and stuffed her with roses. Before he was done, he fixed up her hair, and then he left.

_This was his design._

Will felt someone shaking him, and woke up. Looking down, he saw that he was gripping his rosary—red stones with silver chains—tight enough that his knuckles had turned white and he was surprised he hadn’t snapped the thing in two. He hasn’t zoned out like that in years, and was having trouble processing anything around him—He distantly heard someone speaking to him, the same person gripping his shoulder, but he couldn’t really hear them.

It took a couple seconds—although it felt like minutes—until he could look up to see who was speaking to him. It was Agent Crawford, his voice loud and agonizing. Will, unable to speak quite yet, shook his head violently and tried to escape his grasp by pulling backward, but before he could go too far his back hit something solid and unmoving—a chest. He jumped, turned around as fast as his body would let him, and in the process ripped his shoulder out of Agent Crawford’s hands.

The person standing behind him was none other than Hannibal, his face neutral and a grounding sight compared to Jack’s consistently angry one. Will felt himself take a deep breath, still slightly hyperventilating but feeling somewhat less overwhelmed, and tilting his head, frowning in confusion.

“Doctor Lecter—what’re you doing here?” He knows it’s not the most polite thing, but he’s a little off right now and not exactly in control of his emotions. He completely ignored Agent Crawford behind him, though, who he hears scoff in frustration at being ignored. He imagines that doesn’t happen very often, and would have laughed if he wasn’t in the tail-end of an episode. Hannibal doesn’t seem to notice, though, and if he does, he isn’t aggravated by it.

Hannibal grabs Will’s elbow to stabilize him, because apparently he wasn’t as steady on his feet as he thought he was. He feels himself blush and thanks him.

“Hello, Father. I’m a consultant with the FBI, I help with criminal profiling. Are you alright?” He looks genuinely concerned as he says this, and Will suddenly feels unnecessarily guilty for making the doctor worry. And Agent Crawford, he supposes, although that’s more an afterthought than anything else.

“Oh, yes, I’m fine now, thank you,” he says to Hannibal, before turning back to Agent Crawford. “I must apologize, Agent. I have, what you could call, an empathy disorder—I can put myself in the shoes of someone else. Sometimes it happens involuntarily. I tend to… zone out, and it can take a little bit for me to come back to myself. Was there something that you needed?”

He hears Hannibal make a curious sound behind him, and then the doctor walks to stand next to Agent Crawford so they were all facing each other.

“Whose shoes were you in, Father? The victims, or the killers?” Hannibal says, a curious and thoughtful look in his eyes.

“It’s rare that I get inside the mind of the victim, Doctor. My thoughts aren’t often tasty.”

“Nor mine. No effective barriers.”

Will isn’t quite sure how to respond to that—so he just replies “I build forts.” Hannibal lets out a small chuckle at this. Hannibal looks like he is about to respond, but Agent Crawford interrupts the conversation before he can.

“Did you know who the girl was?” he says, staring intently at Will, with—what looks like—a slightly accusatory glint in his eyes. Along with the normal anger and over-confidence.

Will looks over at the body again, forcing himself to stay in his own shoes, in the present. She does look somewhat familiar, but she wasn’t part of his normal flock. He says as much.

“Her name was Abigail Hobbs. Her mother was the one screaming, a couple minutes ago. According to her mother, Louise, she went here every week for mass and regularly to pray. Are you sure you don’t recognize her?”

“I'm deeply sorry, Agent Crawford, but if she came here every week, it was with another priest. I know the faces of everyone in my flock, and she’s not one of them.”

Agent Crawford looks like he doesn’t want to accept this as an answer, but he does anyway. “You said you could put yourself in the mind of the killer. Any idea why he might have done this?” he says. Will really just wants to go home and rest with his dogs, it’s still morning and his energy is already gone. But he thinks back to the memories in his head anyway, not his but now a part of him, and answers the best he can.

“I think it was… a declaration. Of some sorts. Perhaps not love, not yet, but in the future,” Will takes a breath, letting it out in one quick exhale before continuing. “The killer is showing that he’s found someone that he’s willing to open up to, let himself be _himself_ around. Someone who he thinks will appreciate his art piece that he’s made for them. Someone he thinks is like him, or will be if they’re not already.”

He looks over at Hannibal, and for a split second it looks like he’s proud of Will, but it’s gone before he can read into it more and Will immediately forgets about it.

The other Fathers and the nuns finally show up, and a couple of nuns let out a terrified scream. Will hears Brother Nick start frantically praying, and he realizes he has yet to do that. He’s been too busy explaining to an FBI agent why the murderer did what he did, and he’s surprised he’s not the main suspect. Most people are fairly suspicious of him when he explains how he thinks—they either think he’s some sort of psychic or the devil incarnate.

“Is this killer expecting the person to respond? By another kill? Or is the killer planning on doing it again?” Agent Crawford asks, and Will’s surprised that he actually seems to be listening to him, and not just dismissing his thoughts before even hearing him.

“No, he doesn’t expect anything back. The person who’s being declared to probably doesn’t even know it’s happening. But I would say there’s a pretty good chance of him doing it again. As his feelings develop and grow, so will his want to create his masterpieces and show them to his intended.” He lets out another large sigh, turning away from Agent Crawford and Hannibal, and instead staring at the scientists who were collecting everything they need from the crime scene to his left. He feels the dark side of himself already becoming obsessed with this killer, something that hasn’t happened since he became a priest, and yet it’s already too late to stop it.

One of the scientists picks up a small thing, invisible from the distance, and calls out.

“Jack, there’s a bunch of little beads everywhere. They’re green. I don’t see a sign of a necklace or anything, though.” The agent says, who has dark brown hair and a beard, and who nudges the guy to his left and shoves the evidence in his face. Crawford thanks the man, Zeller, and turns to Hannibal to continue whatever conversation they were having that Will was choosing to ignore.

He walks closer to the scene, just close enough to be able to see those beads. He recognizes them.

“Agent Crawford, these beads aren’t from a necklace. They’re from a rosary—they’re the same kind of bead as mine,” he pulls his out of his pocket, showing them the similar beads that were red instead of green. “She was praying with one when he grabbed her. She must have snapped it out of surprise.”

The other guy at the crime scene, who Will learns is Price, bends over until he’s looking under the altar, where he grabs something and jumps back up.

“He’s right, Jack,” he says, holding up the cross that was originally at the end of the rosary. It still had several beads attached to it, along with the small metal center piece with a picture of Pope John Paul II on it. “Here’s the rest of it. Same beads.”

Will realizes he’s still holding his rosary, and starts rubbing his thumb along the cross. It stabilizes him somewhat.

-

Agent Crawford makes the other priests cancel their sermons, and doesn’t think Will is stable enough to drive home. Hannibal volunteers.

“I’m sure I could do it,” Will says, not wanting to put anybody out and also intimidated at the idea of him and Hannibal being in a car together, and Hannibal seeing his house. “I’ve driven after much worse episodes, really. I’m just planning on going home and resting.”

“I’ve no problem taking you home, Father. You’re not far from here, it’s not even out of my way,” Hannibal says, and clearly sees the indecision on Will’s face. “Please, Father, indulge me.”

And with that, he’s suddenly unable to say no.

The car ride is silent, but comfortable. Hannibal’s black Bentley is warm, the seats soft, and Will feels himself slowly drifting off, until Hannibal breaks the silence.

“Have you eaten yet today, Father?”

He hasn’t. He’s good at feeding his dogs, but he’s not that great at feeding himself.

“Please, call me Will. We’re not in church, anymore, it just sounds strange. And no, I don’t tend to eat breakfast.” He yawns after speaking, just then noticing how truly drained he was—his episodes, while rare these days, were tiring, and he’s going to need to sleep after this.

Who knows if his nightmares would let him do that, now. They were bad enough already, without having seen a murder victim hung to his cross at his church.

His head was leaning against the glass of the car, and his eyes were closed. He didn’t stop to think that that wasn’t very polite, and definitely not something he should be comfortable doing in a near-strangers car, but Hannibal doesn’t say anything, and he’s comfortable. He wants to open up his collar, but even his brain-addled self thinks that that would be too much. He can wait until he gets home.

Home. Dogs.

“Hannibal?”

“Yes, Will?”

“You’re not allergic to dogs, are you?”

“I wouldn’t say they’re my favorite animals, but no, I am not allergic to them. I’m guessing you have some?”

Will feels himself smile.

“Yeah, I have some.”

The rest of the car ride is sat in comfortable silence, and Will only opens his eyes again when the car stops, and Hannibal quietly announces that they’ve made it.

Hannibal walks him to the door, and Will opens it and lets the dogs pile out and run around the lawn.

“Would you like some coffee? It might help you warm up a bit. You’re welcome to come in.” He says, while holding the door open.

“I would love some coffee, Will, thank you.”

_____

When Will said he had some dogs, he thought he meant two or three. Instead, when the door opens and they all barge their way outside, he counts seven.

_Why does his intended have seven dogs?_

That explains the lack of explanation from Will earlier in the car, however.

Will resting in the passenger seat of his car was something heavenly. His face was calm, expression peaceful. His eyes were hidden, which was unfortunate (they were one of Hannibal’s favorite features—they were truly something to behold), but his relaxed exterior did more than make up for it.

He hadn’t expected Will to invite him inside, much less offer to make him coffee. He can still drink and eat, despite his body not needed it for sustenance, and he enjoys the taste.

Wills house is clean and tidy, despite the dogs. It smells good as well, it’s obvious that he keeps it clean, and even the cleaning products smell natural and aren’t over-powering to his keen sense of smell. It’s slightly dusty, and only slightly smells of dog, the essence of cleaning essential oils overpowering the worst of it. It smells like pure _Will._

It’s wonderful.

When Hannibal went to the church service, it was originally for nothing other than to make an appearance since he was new in town. He wasn’t expecting to walk in and be overpowered with the nicest scent he had ever had the pleasure of smelling. It smelt like musk, and pine, and cinnamon; he couldn’t get enough of it, and almost outed himself in front of the entire church. He searched the room for where the scent was coming from, and his eyes stopped upon the priest—a young one, in his late twenties. His hair was long, if not for the dark brown curls that were occupying his head and making his hair appear much shorter than it was. His eyes were a bright blue, almost too blue, and he made the black robe he was in look absolutely indecent.

It took all Hannibal had not to pounce on him right there; bend him over the altar and sink his teeth into Will’s carotid, in front of everybody in the pews while they watch their precious Father lose his faith and find himself—but he knew he had to restrain himself. Some of his kind like to take their intended without consent, until they had no choice but to stay with them, but he much preferred to take it slowly. He wanted Will to _want_ to spend the rest of eternity with him—he wanted Will to slowly see himself losing his faith and understanding his becoming.

When Will perfectly explained his art on the cross at the crime scene, Hannibal knew he did the right thing. On the outside, Will looked scared, and overwhelmed, but the way he was explaining his masterpiece only showed how perfect he was for Hannibal. Not once did he call it disgusting, or monstrous, like the others had; he had called it art, a masterpiece, a _declaration_. He saw Will’s entrancement at the piece—how Will saw beauty where no one else but he could, and he knew this priest had a beautiful affinity. One that he wanted to grow, and expose.

Getting invited to Will’s house was his first step, and it had been much easier than expected. He hadn’t even had to try; the situation arose completely without him.

The myth about vampires needing to be invited in was only partly true. He didn’t need to get explicit consent to come in; something as simple as saying “Oh, you should come over sometime” would work. Will inviting him in for coffee was simple, and perfect. Now he could visit at any time, even if it’s just his mind visiting Will in his dreams—something that he hadn’t been able to do, because of the barriers of the house. He would definitely make sure to use that to his advantage, and soon.

The coffee that Will had made was simple, nothing special, but Hannibal devoured it anyway. It had Will’s essence, and he couldn’t get enough of it. He also needed something to occupy his hands and mouth with, lest he lose control of himself and grab Will from across the table.

Whenever Will went to take a drink, he threw his head back and exposed his neck, which looked soft and inviting and had slight dark stubble that Hannibal wanted to run his fingers across. He could see the veins in his neck running down past his shoulders, and it was almost unbearable. Will had almost immediately taken off his collar and the shoulder robe the second he stepped inside, so his neck was exposed and vulnerable—if Hannibal were any weaker than he is, he doesn’t think he’d have been able to control himself.

He’s never felt so out of control.

He’s positive he looks in control to Will, though. He can see Will trying to figure out how he’s feeling, what his true thoughts are, and he knows it’s frustrating to him that he can’t read Hannibal as easily as he can read everyone else. He tries to let his mask down slightly, just enough for Will (and only Will) to see what’s just on the surface, and that seems to satisfy him a bit.

His entire undead life has been boring and has flown by; not because he was having fun, but because the days dragged on into a blur and passed by without a glance. His life now consists entirely of Will Graham (he had seen his last name on the side of the mailbox in front of his house), and he will do anything he can to keep it that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Re-reading my writing before posting it is painful. I always read the chapter right after I'm finished writing it as well as right before I post it, to make sure there aren't any easily fixable mistakes, and I cringe a bit every time. 
> 
> Love you guys! I'll have the next chapter posted probably tomorrow:)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a small warning: bit of dubcon in this one! it's in a dream, but i figured i should mention it regardless. We've got a bit from Will and Hanni's POV today!
> 
> Enjoy y'all!

Will wakes up to the feeling of someone watching him. That isn’t exactly new, but this specific feeling is.

He sits up, sweating slightly, but less than the amount his usual nightmares cause, and looks around the room. He could swear that the corners of the room look darker than normal, to the point where he can’t see anything in them, but he knows he’s most likely just being dramatic.

He lays back down on his bed, and closes his eyes, breathing in and out slowly to keep from hyperventilating, and resolutely ignoring the feeling of eyes on him.

He’s lying there for a couple minutes, in and out of sleep, when he feels (what feels like) a hand caress his cheek. His eyes fly open, searching for something, but he sees nothing.

 _I must have imagined it_.

He closes his eyes again, and almost falls back into sleep until suddenly he feels it again, lower down on his neck. An involuntary shiver runs down his back, and he waits for the unknown feeling to disappear again. The touch doesn’t stop this time, however; it continues down his neck and chest, lightly trailing along his side until it reaches his hip bone. It disappears once more, and at this point Will is so genuinely confused and slightly horrified and terribly aroused that he’s frozen in place, and nothing can make his body move, despite his mind desperately trying.

Suddenly, two hands grasp his lower thighs, near the knees, and trail all the way up until they stop on his inner thigh, right below his cock, which was—unbeknownst to him—already achingly hard and slightly curved, sitting against his stomach. He feels his legs open up on instinct, and he curses his body and mind for loving this so much. He doesn’t even have an excuse for what’s going on—he should be panicking and running away in terror rather than spreading his legs so the mysterious hands can have easier access. Not to mention how terrible he is for enjoying this so much because he’s a _priest_.

It’s not like he can control how his body reacts to dreams, though—and this had to be a dream, no matter how _real_ it all feels, because there’s no other explanation for it. He decides to let it run its course so he can continue on with his uninterrupted sleep.

He distantly hears himself let out a groan as the hands squeeze his thighs tight enough that—if this weren’t a dream—it would most definitely cause bruises. The pain only helps accelerate the pleasure of being touched there, and he thrusts his hips up in a silent plea to move things along. The hands don’t move where he wants them to, though—they actually ignore his cock altogether, instead moving back up towards his chest to pinch lightly at his nipples, which almost immediately perk up under the assault. His breath is coming out quicker and heavier now, and he lets out a very embarrassing high-pitched whimper that he would have never let out in any other situation. The hands were coaxing noises out of him that he’d never made before, and he never wanted it to stop.

“Oh—oh my gosh—” he moans, dragging the syllables along. His legs open wider still, hips bucking up at an almost constant rate, searching for anything to put friction on his cock which had never been this hard in his _life_. Nothing comes in contact with it, though—nothing but cool and crisp air, and that only makes him more desperate. A blush runs down his face, hot and red, all the way down his neck until it fades out on his chest. He hasn’t been touched like this in—well, truly never, but it’s been years since he had any sort of intimate touch, and his body knows it. He feels close to bursting already, and the hands have done nothing but grip his thighs and pinch his nipples.

After a couple minutes of pure torture, the hands stop their assault on his chest, and he feels nails scratching down his waist and hip bones on both sides, hard enough to break skin and possibly bleed, and his body can’t take it anymore.

He comes, suddenly and without warning, back arching off the bed and hands gripping the sheets above his head. He lets out a high-pitched whine as his release drags on for what feels like several minutes. His sides burn at a constant throb, and the pain only makes his cock give a pitiful little jump, completely drained and now very over-sensitive.

Will lays there for a bit, completely relaxed and muscles as loose as they can be, his sides still throbbing. Something starts lapping at his side—he thinks it’s a dog, and he opens his eyes, but it’s too dark to tell, and bringing his hand down to his waist and waving it around doesn’t come up with anything, so he figures it’s the mysterious entities _tongue._ That should freak him out, but he finds he’s frankly too drained and too sated to really care about what it is that’s touching him like this, so he lets it happen. It feels nice, really, soothing to the cuts and cooling to his over-heated skin. He thinks he feels blood dripping down one of the cuts on the other side of his waist, but he can’t really tell if it’s actually that or just the nerves.

Tired and relaxed, he quickly falls asleep to the feeling of a tongue lapping at his wounds, and sleeps in a dreamless, deep slumber for the rest of the night.

Will wakes up, feeling more rested than he’s felt in years, and for a bit he doesn’t even remember his dream.

It all comes rushing back to him when he’s in the bathroom, in the middle of brushing his teeth, and he has to lean against the sink or else he might collapse from the sudden recollection.

“It felt so real…” he whispers to himself, and he briefly touches his sides to make sure he wasn’t somehow bleeding through his white sleep shirt. His hands come up clean, and a quick glance under his tee shows pristine skin, not a single mark other than the small scar on his upper hip that’s been there since childhood, and he feels ridiculous for thinking it actually happened at all. How would it have happened, anyway? It’s impossible.

He gets in the shower then, thoughts full of the mysterious invisible hands, and he feels his cock jump at the memories. He resolutely ignores it, despite the small voice in the back of his head. _Nobody will know,_ it says, _you don’t need to resist it._

But he knows he must. Any form of lust like this was a sin, and he was already going to have to pray for forgiveness for the mess in his sheets that he woke up to this morning.

He continues his showering, resolutely pushing every thought of last night out of his mind, and ignoring his (embarrassingly) hard cock. It wasn’t until he was washing his body down with soap that he feels a slight twinge on the skin of his inner thigh. His mind races to the beginning of last night’s dream, when invisible hands gripped his thighs inhumanly tight, but that can’t be right. There’s no way.

He rushes to finish his shower, and towels off in lightning speed. He then grabs his handheld mirror, and before he can hesitate, shoves it in-between his legs.

When he sees multiple, fingerprint sized bruises on both of his inner thighs, he thinks he almost passes out. His head falls backward, and he lets out a large, extremely overwhelmed sigh, and then he just lays there, on the floor, naked, while the dogs surround him and try to sniff him in places they _definitely_ should not be sniffing, while he attempts to try to process what this could mean.

After a couple minutes, he could only come up with a couple of possible alternatives: he did it himself while sleeping, and just imagined it was the hands in the dream, _or_ the dream wasn’t really much of a dream at all, and those hands were somehow _real._

He can’t quite process either option, and decides that he’s just going to push it out of his mind, because if he doesn’t, he won’t be able to stop thinking about it. Instead, he gets up, gets dressed—a gray undershirt, red flannel, and some old jeans that had multiple holes in them—and moves on with his day.

He’s about ready to leave to go walk Winston when he gets a phone call. It’s an unknown number, but he answers it anyway.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Will.” Will feels his eyebrows raise in surprise. He knew that voice. He was mainly expecting a spam call, or a bill collector. Definitely not Hannibal, who he had been trying to push out of his mind, because whenever he thinks about him the sinful part of his brain automatically imagines that it was _his_ hands on him in that dream, and that was something he was resolutely _not_ going to think about.

“Hannibal! Uh… How’d you get my number?”

“Oh, you’re right, I apologize, getting a random call from me must be confusing. Jack gave me your number—I wanted to check up on you, make sure you were doing okay today. Did you sleep alright?” Will thinks for a second that he hears an amused tone in the last question, but decides that he was just ignoring it—Hannibal was just being polite, after all.

Despite it being a completely normal question to ask, Will feels himself deeply blush, and it takes him a second before he remembers that he’s supposed to answer.

“Oh, I uhm… I slept well, actually. No nightmares.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, so he didn’t feel bad about saying it. He wouldn’t call whatever he had last night a nightmare.

“I’m glad. You needed it. Have you eaten anything today?”

He feels his blush deepen, but for a different reason entirely. It was painfully obvious that Hannibal was worried about Will’s eating habits—he had asked the same question yesterday, and Will was certain he would be expecting the same answer.

“No, I haven’t,” he chuckles to try to make it seem unimportant, though the laugh sounds weak, and he’s sure it didn’t do anything. “I was just about to go for a walk, actually.”

The other line is completely silent for a few seconds, and Will’s worried that the call dropped.

“…Hannibal?”

“Yes, sorry, I was in another place entirely. Do you mind if I come over? I made an excess of breakfast, you see—I’d hate to waste it. I’m sure it’ll be perfectly up to your standards.”

Will’s automatic response is to refuse, but something in Hannibal’s voice makes him pause before he can. He doesn’t seem to be lying about the amount of food, and he sounds somewhat… hopeful? Maybe he dislikes eating alone, and would be happy for a companion.

“It’s not too far out of your way or anything, is it? I wouldn’t want to put you out or anything.”

“No, Will, it’s barely out of my way at all. I was about to head for my office, which is closer to you anyway.”

“Then… yeah, Hannibal, I’d like that. Thank you.”

They say their goodbyes, and Hannibal promises to be there within an hour. Will finds himself unnecessarily impatient, and the hour drags by slowly, though he tries to speed it along by doing some quick household chores.

When Hannibal finally shows up, Will opens the front door quickly and rushes him inside, because it’s cold and he doesn’t want to force Hannibal to wait outside while he takes his own sweet time opening the door. Hannibal immediately comes in and sets two bowls down on the kitchen table, peeling back silicone lids to reveal steaming eggs, sausage, and a vegetable scramble. It looks wonderful, so Will tells him that, and Hannibal smiles at him.

“The sausage is homemade. I find that store-bought is much too salty, and not satisfactory enough for my kitchen. The eggs and peppers are farm fresh as well.” He brought his own forks and a large tumbler of coffee, so Will only takes out a couple of mugs and ceramic plates. He gives one to Hannibal, and then pours his bowl of food onto his own plate, suddenly extremely hungry and impatient. He bites into the sausage, and is immediately surprised at its flavor. It’s not salty at all, and the flavor of the different spices is mild but very much there. It’s probably the best sausage Will has ever had.

“It’s delicious.” He says, completely sincere, and takes a sip of Hannibal’s coffee, which was rich and strong with the perfect amount of sweetener, and Will groans out of delight at the meal.

_____

  
  


Hannibal’s not quite sure why he decided to invite himself over to Will’s so soon. He hadn’t been able to think of anything other than seeing him since he went to him in his dreams last night, and he knew he needed to at least call Will as soon as possible. Offering to bring him breakfast had been an impulsive thing, one that he wasn’t sure would be accepted up until Will said yes.

He was quite proud of the sausage. It was from his most recent hunt, a pitiful, round, and stout man with unkempt ingrown hairs in his beard and a penchant for catcalling innocent girls walking down the sidewalk—he had enjoyed cutting into him while he was screaming for mercy. He hadn’t fed from him—he doesn’t like to drink from pigs, he much prefers getting his blood from classy underground suppliers. They don’t deserve the euphoric feeling, anyway. He can choose who to drink from, and he’s the strongest of his kind in the entirety of the Baltimore-Washington area; he has no problem getting into the nightclubs.

Eating human flesh, while not as satisfying as drinking straight blood, still curves his always-there appetite, and therefore human is his preferred choice of meat. He also finds it quite amusing to watch the people he dines with unknowingly eat their own kind—it’s been his favorite social pastime for centuries.

Feeding Will the human flesh is less amusing than his normal dining companions. It’s more of a test to see how Will reacts to it, and so far he seems to be passing. Watching Will eat his latest victim is entrancingly beautiful, even though he’s not aware of what he’s eating.

“This is probably the best sausage I’ve ever had. Do you cook often?”

“Cooking is my favorite hobby,” along with killing and eating those who offend him. “I’d be glad to cook for you any time you’d like, Will.” Will looks up at this, a faint blush starting across his cheeks, and looks as if he was left speechless for a couple of seconds. Hannibal, curious as to what Will is thinking, forces his mind out and into the body sitting across from him.

He’s trying to figure out whether or not that was a request for a date, or purely a platonic, respectful invite. He’s preparing his priestly speech about vowing to keep away from lustful sins, in case he needs it. Wonderful.

Hannibal doesn’t often like to read the minds of others—he only does for necessity, because the majority of the time humans are fairly easy to read without having to look inside their head. He couldn’t help but be curious about what goes on inside Will’s head, however, and he’s not quite as easy to read. So far, reaching into Will’s mind has not been disappointing—he has a fascinating brain, so fascinating that Hannibal wishes to devour it whole. He didn’t look any deeper than what was directly on the surface, though—he wanted Will to voluntarily tell him about his past and all of the beautiful things in his mind that Hannibal has yet to discover.

He waits patiently for Will to respond, not giving any hint to the answer to the question that Will silently asks, and instead waits to Will to come up with his own conclusion and respond appropriately.

_____

Will sits in his seat, staring at Hannibal, as he thinks of an appropriate way to respond to the invitation. Hannibal sits patiently, not showing signs of waiting for an answer, and for a second Will thinks of not responding at all, and just continuing to eat his food.

It couldn’t be anything other than platonic, could it? Hannibal and Will had _met_ at a church, after one of Will’s very own sermons, so Hannibal knew he was a priest. He has to know about the celibacy rule, right? That’s one of the most well-known promises that priests made to the Catholic church.

Not to mention the church’s problem with homosexuality. Will had never seen an issue with it, personally he could care less who someone wanted to love or fuck, but he knew the issues that the church had with it. It didn’t exactly mix well with religion. He was supposed to be married to the church—married to God; he wasn’t supposed to even _consider_ being with anybody, let alone a man. Hannibal had to know that, right? He had to.

Will decides to go with the polite option, because that sounds like the only option that wouldn’t result in embarrassment or miscommunication right now.

“Yeah, that sounds nice. Thank you.”

The rest of breakfast mainly just involves Will asking Hannibal questions about his job, and Hannibal responding, seemingly without care of the confidentiality of his patients, who Will now knows by description _and_ name. He likes how open Hannibal seems to be, though, so he refrains from pointing out just how many laws he has broken in the past fifteen minutes. He’s also glad for a distraction from his thoughts so he doesn’t start thinking of his dream from last night.

On Hannibal’s way out, he hands Will one of his business cards.

“Just in case you need to get ahold of me on my work phone,” he starts with, and he smiles a bit as he finishes his sentence. “Or if you need to talk about anything in the comfort of an office. I’m always open to talk with friends, Will.”

He’s not quite sure what to say in response to that—Will hasn’t exactly had the best experience when it came to psychiatrists, but it’s not as if he was one of Hannibal’s patients. He’s certain that Hannibal doesn’t bring breakfast and the best coffee of Will’s life to all of his actual patients. And he can’t lie when he says he’s more comfortable talking to Hannibal about anything in his life than he is with anybody else he talks to—the closest would be one of the nuns, Alana, who he considered himself good friends with.

He says thank you and the rest of his goodbyes, before shutting the door once he sees Hannibal get in his car. Just like every time after seeing Hannibal, he feels relaxed and light on his feet, and he cleans the mess from breakfast in a good mood, something he hasn’t fully felt in a long time—he’s unsure how to feel about that, but he’s not doing anything wrong, so he sees no point in stopping when he clearly enjoys Hannibal’s strange company so much. He still sees some unknown darkness in Hannibal—something deep, and pitch black—but he can’t bring himself to be as scared of it as he was before, though he’s still impossibly curious (and terrified) to see what that darkness is, and why it’s there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week is finals week, and I just finished my last one! I have an essay to write still, but it's for philosophy and shouldn't be too difficult. Can't believe the semesters already over!
> 
> The next chapter should be up within the next couple of days. All of you are appreciated and loved!!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to think that Will has a hand kink. It's just something that-- for some reason-- seems completely canon to me. So I kind of tried to add it into the story from here on out. Hopefully it works and doesn't seem too out of place-- luckily, I think it's still early enough into the story to make it work out fine.
> 
> Finished my finals today! I no longer have to do any school work for a little over a month, and hopefully I'll be finished/almost finished with the story by then. I currently already have 21,000 words written, which is more than I ever expected to write, and I'm not even done yet. So we'll see, I suppose.
> 
> Enjoy y'all! Love ya!

The next time Will stumbles across a crime scene, it’s three weeks later and he’s just trying to take his poor dogs for a walk, for fucks sake.

He had driven to town to go to his favorite park—a small, charming thing that’s secluded and isolated. Will likes bringing his dogs there on Saturdays, because it’s quiet and relaxing and a beautiful shade of green in the summer. He can only take two or three dogs at a time—bringing all seven would be too much of a hassle, and would probably turn into a nightmare.

He had brought Winston, Ellie, and Jack this week; they were his favorite group to bring because they were all fairly well-behaved, and they didn’t tug on the leashes like some of his others did. Will decided to take a different route than normal, turning left instead of right at the fork which gave way to a half-mile gravel trail surrounded by trees that made an archway around the path. It was beautiful, and he wondered why he didn’t take this side more often.

It wasn’t until he smelt the tell-tale scent of burnt flesh that he thought something might be wrong. At first, he thought someone must’ve had a barbeque, or a cook-out, until he remembered that a roast doesn’t usually smell this strong, or _this_ similar to rotting flesh. He was glad he had decided to bring his phone this time around—he sometimes left it at home—and opened the keypad to have it ready in case he needed to call someone.

He wasn’t quite ready to see the body as he walked into an opening of trees, presumably a picnic area if the table in the center was anything to go by, but something in his mind told him he should be a lot more traumatized than he _did_ feel. He was almost calm as he called the police, save his beating heart and empathy running rampant.

The body—he was unable to tell what gender it was—was burnt to a crisp, and laying on its back, legs and arms spread in an anatomical position. They were completely naked (Will assumes the clothes had burnt off, but it was impossible to tell), and a circle of rocks had been places around the body. It reminded Will of the _Vitruvian Man_ sketch.

He waited there with his dogs while the FBI were making their way. He was sure he would see Agent Crawford again—and perhaps even Hannibal.

Other than small conversations after Sunday mass, he hasn’t seen Hannibal since the morning he brought over breakfast. Nothing seemed strained between them, Will would have been able to tell, but according to Hannibal, he’s been extremely busy with his patients and hasn’t had much time for anything other than work.

Will hasn’t had another one of those odd dreams since that night either, and while he was happy with that, a very small and ignored part of him wishes it would happen again.

 _I should be glad I haven’t had any more tests of my faith_ , he thinks, and he was. It was just… a nice change from the nightmares, he supposes.

Despite the circumstances, he can’t lie when he thinks that he’ll be happy to see Hannibal again. He enjoys talking to someone who doesn’t seem to think he’s weird or too unstable. He also enjoys not having to pretend to be someone he’s not, like he so often has to do. He’s forgotten what it’s like to be even a little bit of himself in front of people.

Agent Crawford and his team show up, and Will doesn’t see Hannibal anywhere. He tries not to feel disappointed.

“Father—they had said you had made the call again, but I couldn’t quite believe it,” Agent Crawford says to him as he walks up, and holds out his hand for Will to shake. “What’re you doing out here this early in the morning?”

Will looks down at his dogs, still leashed and at his feet, and then down at himself. He was wearing simple clothes—a winter jacket, a black shirt, and some old jeans that Will had found in the back of his closet when he was cleaning it out last week. From the curious glint in his eyes, Will thinks Agent Crawford is asking about his whereabouts for more than just curiosity.

“I like to come out here every once in a while to walk my dogs—it’s usually quite beautiful. And please, Agent Crawford, Will is fine. I’m not exactly in the uniform right now.” He smiles, and tries to put on a pleasant face, while also trying to maintain the look of cautious fear that any normal person would have.

Unfortunately, Will wasn’t normal, and the idea of death and murder is nothing new in his mind. He has to at least pretend that it’s an unusual sight for him.

While he doesn’t see death often, it appears in his dreams on a regular basis—horrible, gruesome things, often caused by him, which forces him to wake up in a sweaty, blind panic, until he gets his wits back together and gets up to pray in a somewhat manic manner.

Katz, the pretty girl who works the crime scenes with Price and Zeller, comes up to ask if she can pet his dogs after greeting him like an old friend. She calls him Will, assumingly hearing him before she walked up, and Will almost feels like he has known her for more than a couple of murder scenes. He agrees, and she goes to pet Ellie first, then Jack, and lastly Winston, who’s tail hits his leg at every wag. Winston, absolutely adoring the attention, falls over and rolls onto his back, simultaneously begging for more petting while making him seem more lovable.

Will shakes his head in amusement, smiling at Winston, who stares at Katz with his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth.

“Your dogs are adorable, Will. If you ever need a dog sitter, for vacation or anything, get ahold of me—I’d love to take care of them for you.” She says, and hands him a business card with her name and number on it—Beverly Katz.

“Thank you, Beverly. I might take you up on that—I feel bad for asking my friend to do it every time.” He smiles at her, a genuine smile this time, and decides that he likes her. She’s carefree, bright, and full of sass, and Will likes how quickly she acts friendly with him. The best way to get to know him has always been to just act like they had been friends forever—Alana did the same thing, and she’s the only constant friend he’s had in years. Hannibal had done it as well, a smaller and less noticeable amount, but Will is nothing if not perceptive.

Agent Crawford and Beverly—who had insisted he call her by name, rather than title—walked back to the crime scene to continue surveying the land. He’s not quite sure what to do now. They hadn’t told him that it was okay to leave, so he just sits on the ground—outside of the police tape so he doesn’t mess up the evidence—and plays with his dogs. He hears a car pull up from somewhere behind him, but he doesn’t really pay any attention to it. He assumes it’s just another officer coming to assess, so he doesn’t look up from his current position on the ground, legs stretched out in front of him, with Ellie on his lap, Winston in between his legs, trying to lick his face, and Jack patiently sitting by his side.

He’s busy playing with Winston when he sees legs in perfectly tailored dress pants come to a stop a couple of feet from his legs. He looks up slowly, dragging his eyes up the body as he goes (he doesn’t really notice himself doing it, but he can’t help the way his cheeks pinken slightly).

Just like he thought, Hannibal was the man standing there, looking down at Will with an amused glint in his eyes. Will doesn’t quite know what to say—a part of him can’t help but blush harder at the view of Hannibal towering over him, and isn’t _that_ something he should be worrying about more?

Will laughs, and stands up, lightly pushing Ellie off of him and strategically standing so as to not kick Winston, who doesn’t seem to understand the reason Will is getting up. The dog lets out at loud whiny bark that makes Will laugh harder and a couple of police officers startle and glance over to make sure there wasn’t _another_ murder. His mind was immediately more relaxed, both his dogs and Hannibal being in close vicinity making him feel like he hadn’t just been a main witness to a burn/murder victim.

Despite only knowing Hannibal for a short time, the man had quickly dug his heels in Will’s mind, and Will doesn’t think he’ll be leaving any time soon. He’s happy to have met a friend who he doesn’t have to be someone else around—even with Alana, who has been close to him for years, knows less about Will’s true self than Hannibal, who he had just known for a little over a month. His mind makes him feel guilty for the not very priestly feelings and thoughts that like to show up at random times about Hannibal, but he can’t stop himself from thinking them. He makes sure to pray extra hard whenever he has those thoughts, and he does feel an irrational amount of regret and guilt at any thought that’s even _friendly_ about Hannibal—for some reason, even the smallest detail about him feels indecent and sinful, and a more than small part of Will can’t get enough of it. That more than small part gets shoved down into the back of Will’s mind and ignored, until it inevitably pops back up again at random times. Like when he finally went to the store and bought breakfast foods— _purely because he didn’t want Hannibal to worry._

His mind also liked to remember the dream he had a couple of weeks ago, one that—while not necessarily Hannibal—is automatically associated with him.

He thinks about that dream, now, with Hannibal standing a few feet from him, that damned amused look still in his eyes, and Will’s glad there are more than a dozen people around—it keeps him grounded, and stops him from doing something he would definitely regret later.

He realizes he’s just been staring at the other man for a couple seconds too long, and shakes himself out of whatever spell it felt he had been in.

“Hannibal, hello! I wasn’t sure whether to expect you here or not.” He shakes Hannibal’s hand, which is strong and lightly calloused, with a black ring on his middle finger, and Will can’t quite help holding it longer than what is considered normal.

He finally releases it, and lets out a small (hopefully unnoticeable) sigh, before looking back up at Hannibal’s face with what he hopes is a welcoming smile.

“Hello, Will. I wasn’t quite sure I was going to make it—I was in the middle of an appointment with one of my patients,” he pauses, an unrecognizable look in his eyes, before continuing. “But I heard you were the one to make the call, yet again. I couldn’t help myself.”

Will feels himself blush again—although this time it’s more because he’s realized he’s been the caller for two murders in the past month. It might also be associated with the way his name sounds coming from Hannibal’s lips, the accent making the sound roll off his tongue in a way that he _definitely_ shouldn’t be thinking about.

“I’m not sure why _I_ keep being the one to find them,” He looks down at his dogs, which were sniffing around his and Hannibal’s feet. “Luck, I guess.”

“Luck indeed.” Hannibal gives him a smile, although something about it doesn’t feel like a smile. It almost feels a sinister smirk, like something that Will should be worried about or scared of, but _definitely_ isn’t. In fact, he probably feels the opposite of what he should be feeling when he sees that smile.

Ignoring the feeling (mainly out of embarrassment and guilt), he decides to look down at Hannibal’s hand, instead of answering. It was lightly and cautiously petting the top of Winston’s head, who was, as usual, absolutely adoring it, and had moved to sit graciously on Hannibal’s right side. The look of Hannibal with a dog (specifically _this_ dog) was a powerful sight, and looking down at the hand, which was now scratching behind Winston’s ear, was a bit too much for Will. He felt a little overwhelmed for a moment, and had to look away once again.

He decides to blame it on the murder scene twenty feet from him, rather than the man and his dog only 4 feet away.

Suddenly, Agent Crawford’s bolstering voice breaks Will’s concentration on the rocks in front of him.

“Doctor Lecter! You’ve finally made it! Come here, will you, and bring Will Graham.” He sees Hannibal tense for a split second, but he immediately relaxes and puts on a mask of indifference perfect enough that—if Will were any less observant—would have tricked him. He can see how the disrespectful tone of Agent Crawford’s demand affected Hannibal, however, despite how quick he was to throw up a full-body mask.

“He used my full name,” Will muses on the way to the Agent. “It’s like I’m not even here or something.” He says it mainly as a joke—he was used to it. Being the supposed mentally unstable priest at any social event will guarantee that. But he starts to immediately regret it when Hannibal tenses up again, and he could almost feel the very heated glare the doctor was sending Agent Crawford’s way.

“Eh, I’m used to it. Most people tend to regard me as if I’m not actually a person.” He tries to lighten the mood with a self-deprecating joke, and looks over at Hannibal with a smile, but he’s pretty sure he’s only made it worse. Hannibal now looks like he wants to kill everyone in the vicinity.

Hannibal looks over at him, then, and seems to notice that Will was trying to joke around, because he visibly relaxes, and returns Will’s smile—only mostly fake.

They walk up together, stopping a couple of feet from Agent Crawford, and standing close enough to the body that the smell was overwhelming. Even Hannibal looked a little queasy.

“The body has been here for about a week. Do you know of anybody that comes here other than you, Will?” Crawford asks, looking at Will intensely and making him really regret his decision to take his dogs to the park this morning.

“No, Agent, sorry. I like coming here purely because I rarely see anyone on the trails—it’s the only place other than my own house that I feel like I can get some peace and quiet.”

Agent Crawford is visibly disappointed in his answer, but accepts it nonetheless.

“Alright, well. We don’t think we need any profiling, at the moment. It’s pretty set-in stone, what happened here,” he looks down at the body, and Will ignores the urge to mention that there’s _always_ something important when it comes to a murder, and those stones in a circle represent _something_. “One more thing before the two of you leave, though—do you think this is the same guy as the one in the church?”

Will thinks for a moment, closing his eyes to keep the distractions of the people moving around him at a minimum. With his eyes closed, he focuses on the body, on Crawford, and on Hannibal, who is patiently waiting for him to answer before putting down his own opinion.

“No. This was a different person. They didn’t do this to show admiration, or love. They did it for anger, and revenge. It’s unlikely—but still possible—that they will kill again.”

He opens his eyes then, and a bright light flashes from the corner of his eye. He sees a woman, pretty and tall with bright red curls, talking to a police officer and holding a camera directly in front of her. He turns to Crawford, then, who obviously notices the same girl and is looking at her with unbridled anger. It’s clear that he knows her.

“Miss Lounds! I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again—taking pictures of a crime scene without the right licenses or permission is _illegal._ I can have you arrested.”

She looks up at Jack, and very clearly takes no stock in what he’s telling her.

“The people deserve to see the truth, Jack. You won’t stop me from showing them.” She says, before walking away and out of sight before anyone can stop her.

“Freddie Lounds, author of TattleCrime.com. She is a regular nuisance at the majority of crime scenes I go to.” He hears Hannibal whisper, close to his ear. He can faintly feel his breath on his neck, and closes his eyes for just a moment before opening them and regarding Hannibal with a curious look.

“TattleCrime, eh? That’s impressive—I enjoy reading her stuff sometimes. Although—I do wish you don’t repeat that to any of my fellow church members—I doubt they’d approve.”

“Oh Will,” Hannibal laughs, eyes crinkling in the corners in a way that makes him look young and carefree. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

It’s in moments like these that Will remembers why he has such little problem being around and thinking of Hannibal. He says perfectly normal things, but something about the timbre of his voice makes them sound impossibly pornographic, and makes every nerve in Will’s body sing with delight. He embraces it, just for a moment, before shoving the feeling down once again and smiling in response to Hannibal, giving him a small thanks and walking with him off of the crime scene until they reach their respective cars, Will holding his dogs in his left hand.

“Will you be alright driving home, Father? If you need, I have no problem making the short trip to your house, if you’re feeling anxious.” Will notices the unrecognizable tilt to Hannibal’s voice when he says _Father_ , something that makes Will shudder and turn away, using the excuse of putting his dogs in the backseat.

“Oh, no, _Doctor Lecter._ I’m quite alright. I feel perfectly stable.” He smiles once again, and he thinks his cheeks are going to start hurting if he keeps this up, because he hasn’t had this many real smiles in years, except for when he’s with Hannibal. He still refuses to think about it.

They make their goodbyes, Hannibal shaking Will’s hand once again with something akin to knowledgeable humor in his eyes. Will returns the handshake in a clearly restrained way, as he tries to keep the urge to stay there, right hand clasped with Hannibal’s left, for a moment longer. He lets go, however, and gets in the front seat of his car with a carefree feeling in his chest, despite the murder scene not thirty feet from him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bit of dream dubcon in this chapter, as well. Should be the last one, from what I have planned at the moment.
> 
> Enjoy!

That night, Will had another dream.

It started as a nightmare—he dreamt of Abigail Hobbs, up on the cross, blood dripping down before the altar he stood at every Sunday. She was still alive, and screaming, and Will was trying to help her down, but every move made her blood gush out more, and he couldn’t do anything. He felt tears in his eyes, and he kept trying to scream for help, but every time his mouth opened up, nothing but a whisper came out.

Eventually, he had given up, resigned to the fact that there was nothing he could do, and instead decided to kneel in front of her with his rosary, and _pray_ , and hope that would be enough.

He was on the second Glory Be before anything changed.

“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning—,” he hears something—footsteps coming up behind him—but they’re ignored. “—Is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”

All is silent. He pauses his prayer, wondering when the screaming had stopped. He looks up. Where Abigail had been, there was nothing. The cross was empty as always, clean of blood and roses and bodily remains. In his mind, he had saved her.

He stands up, and walks towards the altar. He’s lucid, aware—he can tell this was a dream, and he was not confused at the sudden disappearance. If anything, he felt oddly calm. None of the previous fear of seeing Abigail on the cross was showing through now.

He knows somebody else was in the room with him. Somebody alive, yet not quite alive, but he couldn’t care to be bothered. He was too at peace to worry about such menial things.

It wasn’t until he felt a hand on his shoulder that Will truly wondered who could be in the room with him. He tried to turn around, but the grip was strong, and he found that he had no choice but to remain facing forward, in front of the altar, looking away from the unknown creature behind him.

Suddenly, his chest is pushed forward and down, but his legs are stabilized where he was standing. The front of him falls, and he finds himself bent over the altar. He has to turn his head in order to breathe, and whenever he looks behind him all he can see is a body in a classy dark blue suit—the face was just out of reach, and no matter how hard Will tries to strain his eyes to see, it continued to stay perfectly out of his vision. His first thought was Hannibal, and he feels arousal swirling around in his stomach, the beginnings of an erection slowly gaining upon him.

Will tries to fight him—or whatever/whoever this was—off of him, but their hands are strong and unmoving as they pin Will’s wrists to his back and leans against his legs until he is completely restrained. His eyes close, out of disgust or fear or excitement, Will can’t truly tell, as he submits to whatever is happening to him.

The demon—because that’s all they could possibly be, isn’t it, with what they’re doing in Will’s church—feels him relax, and gives a satisfied hum above him.

He starts rutting against Will from behind, and he attempts to struggle more, but that only makes the grip on him that much tighter, and he submits once again. The demon was already hard—or at least he _feels_ like he was already hard—and Will can’t help a groan that slips out of his lips when he feels the demon’s arousal rubbing against him.

He lets out another groan when he suddenly notices that he _likes_ it, and that his cock is fully erected, and straining against his pants.

The demon continues like this—rutting against him—until Will is letting out consistently louder gasps and moans. He had started grinding down on the altar, giving up on struggling and instead deciding to enjoy the pleasure, because this was a _dream._ He knew it was. Even if he was lucid and aware of what he was doing, he might as well enjoy it while it lasts.

The mysterious creature behind him stopped moving, and any sense of decency that Will still had ran out of the window quite a while ago, so Will pushed back on the demon behind him, silently asking for more movement. He heard a grunt above him, deep and rough, and decided he was doing the right thing, so continued to do it. Harder and faster, Will tried to get the demons cock as close to inside of him as he could, even though he knew that would be impossible with the amount of clothing the both of them wore. It didn’t stop him from grinding back as hard as he could in order to feel the pressure he wanted, and it didn’t stop the demon from letting go of his wrists to roughly grab onto his hips.

He didn’t even think about his wrists being free, instead simply moving them above his head to grasp onto the end of the altar, giving him even more leverage to push up against the demon’s erection.

Between the friction of his cock and the fabric of the cloth on the altar and the feeling of the (in his mind, Hannibal’s) erection, he was teetering way too close to finishing to be comfortable. His cock was straining painfully against his pants, and he wanted nothing more than to reach one of his hands down there to grab onto himself, but a silent order in the air made him stop—whoever was above Will did not want him to do that, so he won’t. Instead, he continued moving.

He felt teeth on his shoulder, biting down hard enough that he felt skin break even with the barrier of clothes between, and it made him cry out in pain. Despite how much it hurt, however, he was just that much closer to his release, so painfully close, and he felt like bursting any second.

Just before he could, though, he felt pulsing against his backside, and a long grunt of his name directly next to his ear. The voice sounded familiar—very familiar—but Will was too out of his mind to care.

He was close, _oh so close_ , but right before he was about to come the pressure stopped, and he woke up.

He could swear he could hear a sinister laugh, maniacal and clearly amused, echo around his room as he sat up quickly. His hard-on was painful, extremely so, and it took all of him not to trail his hand down and take care of it, but he was no longer in a dream. He couldn’t pretend he didn’t have control over what was happening this time. He rubbed his shoulder, feeling particularly sore, assuming he had just slept in an odd position—before he remembered that was the same shoulder the demon had bit down on, and then he resolutely pushed the pain out of his mind.

Will looked at the clock—it was only four in the morning, and he didn’t have to wake up until seven in order to get to morning mass on time—but there was no way that he would be able to fall back asleep. So instead, he gets up, hastily steps out of his clothes, and takes a shower as cold as the water would get, completely ignoring the stinging on his shoulder and the erection in-between his legs.

In the shower, under the safety of the icy water and the resolute ignoring of his physicality’s, he thinks about the dream.

The demon had worn a royal blue suit, with a flower-patterned tie. It was obvious the same person who had killed Abigail Hobbs was the person in the dream, his mind could put it together that much, but _who_ it was, Will didn’t know. His subconscious knew, but not him, and though he thought about it all throughout getting ready, he couldn’t quite put it together. He also couldn’t imagine why his subconscious was giving him _sexual_ dreams of the killer, or why he _enjoyed it so much._

Will wasn’t necessarily feeling very church-y today. His mind felt dirty, and sinful, and impure, but he couldn’t exactly cancel his sermon because he was feeling especially horny after having a dream that should not have been enjoyable.

The rest of the morning passed by fairly uneventfully. He fed his dogs, kept accidentally rubbing his shoulder, and had breakfast—which consisted of cereal and an orange. Definitely not up to Hannibal’s standard, but he figured it was a start.

Thinking about Hannibal was definitely not helpful, though. He imagined it was _his_ erection that had been pressed up against him so in a way that had seemed so _realistic_ , and _his_ teeth marks that Will suspected were somehow imprinted on him.

He stopped, though, because then that would mean that was also _his_ art that had been displayed on his cross, and Will wasn’t quite ready to think about that possibility this early in the morning.

Although—now that he thought about it, he couldn’t get it out of his head.

Hannibal matched the profile. Smart, possibly an intelligent psychopath, charming to everyone but terrifying when angry. Will had seen him glare at Crawford and that glare was more intimidating than most things Will had witnessed. He imagines that when he gets truly angry it was a sight to behold—terrifying, and beautiful.

He was new to the area, and went to the same church that the murder had happened in. He had told Will that he had come to a couple of different masses with different priests before settling down, so it was very possible that he had met Abigail at an earlier time.

Will had _seen_ something evil in him. Something not quite right, and sinful, and _bad._ But Will had ignored it, and now he keeps thinking up situations that probably don’t even _mean_ anything.

Hannibal had been nothing but nice to him. Even though he doesn’t seem to like much of anybody, like Agent Crawford, he had been treated with nothing but respect by him. There’s no reason to think he’s the killer.

Despite that, Will kept thinking about it up until he had walked in the church doors and got ready for mass. Even during Sunday school, it was in the back of his head, festering and growing despite his internal insistence that it should _stop_. How was he going to face Hannibal and act like nothing was wrong today when they talked after sermon?

Maybe he won’t be there. Maybe one of his patients will need him, and he’ll have to miss this week, and Will won’t have to see him until next week.

 _He’s never missed a Sunday before, though, has he?_ His unhelpful mind unhelpfully supplies for him, and he gets the strongest urge to just drive away before he has to preach for mass that he’s had all day.

Sunday school is over quicker than it feels like it should be, and he’s walking unhurriedly to the nave before he truly processes where his feet were bringing him. He already hears people, quietly chatting before service, and he decides that it’s too late to fake a flu and run off. People had already seen him. His favorite older couple, Mr. and Mrs. McAlister, had already waved politely at him, and he had waved back.

He keeps his head down while walking to the pulpit, and continues to keep it down until he thinks it would seem rude. More people had entered, he could hear their footsteps whenever they came in, but he hasn’t heard Hannibal’s quiet, slow, and steady steps yet. He thought he had, once, but he saw them walking from the corner of his eye and he recognized the shoes of an elderly man that came every other Sunday.

The second he lifted his head to start the sermon, he couldn’t help but look towards where Hannibal usually sits. He wasn’t there.

Will didn’t know whether he was relieved or disappointed, and that worried him. If Hannibal had murdered someone here—which Will starts to believe more and more every time he thinks about it—he should not be feeling disappointed. He should only feel relieved. And scared.

The fact that he had to consciously add being scared of Hannibal to the list also worried him.

He started his sermon, and forced himself to forget about Hannibal for the time being.

Half-way through the sermon, in the middle of prayer, Hannibal walks in. Will has his head down, and his eyes closed, but he can hear the footsteps. Almost impossible to hear over his voice—the slow, measured steps, and Will almost stops speaking. He manages to only stutter a bit before continuing like nothing had happened.

Once the prayer was over, he looked back up and immediately to Hannibal’s spot.

He was wearing a royal blue suit with a flower-patterned tie. The same one from his dream from last night.

 _But—how?_ He thinks. _How is that even possible?_

He feels his brows crease, and he hears himself stop speaking in the middle of his sentence. He knows these things are happening, and he knows he’s looking directly at Hannibal, confusion and fear showing clearly in his eyes. But he can’t break out of the little spell he has put himself in, and he continues his one-sided staring match until he hears someone clear their throat. Hannibal is looking at him with amusement in his eyes, not looking even a little confused at the sudden terror on Will’s face. He turns his head. The person that had cleared their throat was another priest, Brother Nick. He was looking at Will expectantly, and that made Will snap out of it. He clears his own throat, apologizes quickly, and attempts to continue where he left from.

The rest of the sermon passes in a daze, and he’s pretty sure he repeated the same verse five or six times. Everyone walks out quietly, confused at whatever had happened, even more confused when Will doesn’t stay for his normal socialization. He walks quickly, head down, immediately to the confessional booth, where he shuts himself in and attempts to stop the panic that’s attempting to climb up his throat. He feels the sting of tears in his eyes, and he thinks he’s hyperventilating, but he can’t find it in himself to stop.

He thinks he hears someone sit down on the other side of the confessional, but he doesn’t process it. They don’t speak, either confused or patiently letting him go through his own breakdown before they explain theirs, but he doesn’t really care. He’s too busy desperately trying to get his breathing back to a normal and safe pace.

“Are you alright to talk yet, Father?” the voice on the other side of the booth says. He knows that voice—the same one he thinks about too often, the same one that had groaned his name in his dream last night. The same one that was wearing the _same fucking suit_ as last night and—he was certain now—the same one who had killed Abigail Hobbs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was planning on posting this hours ago, but I've spent the past several hours catching chickens in my backyard, hahaha. We have several dozen, and they're free range, but one is in the coop full time because she's nursing some baby chicks-- she escaped, and we've been trying to catch her. We finally got her though!! I wrote a new chapter, *and* was able to read over/post today's new one-- yay!
> 
> Hope y'all have good weekends! Next chapter should be up tomorrow or the next day, like usual. <3


	7. Chapter 7

Will doesn’t respond for a few more minutes. He was scared that, if he opened his mouth, nothing but a sob would come out.

After a bit of waiting, he feels like he could open his mouth, and one of the questions he was trying _not_ to ask spewed out before he had the chance to stop it.

“How—how did you—” well. It _mainly_ came out. He found that was all he could say at the moment before his throat seized up again.

“How did I what, Father?” Hannibal sounded so confident, so innocent, and Will almost believed it. Almost. He knew what Hannibal had done, though, and he could see past his lies now. Despite his confusion over his dreams, he knew he had killed Abigail Hobbs as a declaration.

He tried to ignore the part of him that was curious over the declaration.

“I—I had a dream, last night,” he starts, before taking a large breath, and attempting to continue. “You were wearing that suit. The same one. That’s not possible.”

“Isn’t it?”

Will isn’t quite sure what to say to that. So, he doesn’t say anything. Hannibal continues after a couple of seconds.

“I find it’s perfectly plausible, in our instance, my dear Will.” Will can’t even _begin_ to understand what that could mean, and he ignored the rush up his spine at Hannibal calling Will ‘my dear’.

“Don’t call me that. I’m not your ‘dear’. I’m a _priest,”_ he pauses, lets out a shaky breath he only just realized he had been holding in, and finishes his sentence. “And I know what you did to Abigail Hobbs.”

The other side of the box is silent for several seconds, and Will starts to worry that he had said something wrong. That _he_ would be the next one up on the crucifix.

“I’m proud of you for figuring it out. I knew you would. You’re much smarter than anyone gives you credit for,” Hannibal’s voice was full of pride, and Will felt a small part of him, the same part that was somehow _okay_ with who Hannibal was, fill to the brim with glee because Hannibal was happy with him. The rest of him, the only part Will was currently listening to, was terrified at the pride in his voice. Someone who had brutally murdered a teenage girl in his own church was _proud of him,_ and Will was revolted. “Although—you shouldn’t be so rude. I don’t much like rudeness.”

 _Oh, God, he’s going to kill me_ , he thinks. He feels himself start to hyperventilate again as his empathy kicks into overdrive.

Will can see it all now. _He kills those who offend him. Something as simple as accidentally shoving him on a busy sidewalk and not apologizing enough is grounds for him to put you on the list. Something Will had just said would be considered rude. Oh, God, he_ eats _them._

He didn’t kill Abigail because she was rude, though. Hannibal had actually quite liked her. He killed her because he knew Will would like her, and the declaration he had made was for _him._

“ _No…_ No, Hannibal, I don’t know why you made that for me on the cross, with Abigail, but I’m not like you. I can’t—that’s not—” he’s panicking, speaking louder and louder now. He forces himself to quiet down to almost an inaudible whisper, but he knows that Hannibal will hear him. “Murdering someone will not make me want to be with you.”

He knows saying this will most likely get him killed, but he’s in the midst of an anxiety attack, and he can’t really understand much about what he’s saying. He does know, however, that he would rather die than have to think about what to do after he leaves this confession booth. Or how his perfectly planned life, so carefully and deliberately arranged, will now never be the same—even if he does live.

“My dear Will, Abigail was reborn to art. She was unhappy with her life—her dad killed multiple people. He fed them to her. She found out, and that’s why she was in the church that night—she was praying for him,” Hannibal says, voice calm, and despite the frightening words he was saying, Will felt his mind start to focus on the calming lull of his voice. He felt himself being grounded by Hannibal’s tone, and his blood stopped rushing passed his ears as fast. He started to be able to breathe again, and his body betrayed his mind—he listened to Hannibal speak, let him ground and relax him until he was back in the present, head leaning against the wall of the confessional, right next to the small mesh door that had been closed. His ear was right above it, and he could sense that Hannibal was right on the other side, mouth leaned up against the mesh in order to speak right next to Will’s ear. “She had panicked, at first. Tried to run, not knowing what was happening to her. Once I restrained her and she relaxed, she was grateful that I was taking her away from her father. I could sense it.”

He paused for a minute, seemingly debating what to say next.

“I hadn’t even drained her of blood, like I wanted. I thought you wouldn’t appreciate it as much.”

That makes Will sit up, back straight and no longer leaning against the side of the booth. He remembers what they were talking about. Despite Hannibal’s calming voice, he was speaking of murder—Will had to make himself remember that.

“What? …Blood?” His mind starts racing, connecting crime scenes that Freddie Lounds had posted on TattleCrime.com, bodies completely drained of blood and dropped off the side of the road. He hadn’t paid much attention to them before, simply skimming through the articles, but the pictures come rushing back now. Hannibal says something, but he can’t hear it.

“What…” he feels like he can’t speak. He has a million questions, more than that, but he can’t find it in himself to ask them. He’s too scared to ask them. He was probably already on death row, but he shouldn’t make it worse for himself. “What _are_ you?”

This hoaxes a laugh out of Hannibal, a sinister, evil sounding thing, and it makes Will shrink into himself until he’s flush with the furthest corner of the confessional from Hannibal. He was glad they weren’t face to face, that there was a barrier between them. He doesn’t think he’d be able to handle it if he were looking at Hannibal.

He’s terrified, and worried, and panicky, but mainly he feels betrayed. Betrayed because he was lied to, because he had trusted Hannibal. Betrayed because, for once in his life, Will felt like he had found a friend that he could talk to and _be himself with_. The only person Will had grown to be comfortably himself around was a blood drinking, cannibalistic serial killer.

Will thought he had erased all forms of violence from his life when he had decided to become a priest. That was, he thought, the _least_ violent occupation he could have chosen, and he still managed to pick out the worst person in the bunch to get even a little close to.

“Will, you remarkable boy. Your mind is truly something to behold. You’ve reached that much quicker than a regular mind would. Much, much quicker. That’s proven with Jack,” he waits for a second, and Will hears him shifting around on the other side of the booth. “I know you feel betrayed that I lied to you, dear boy. Know that was not my intention. I have never wished to lie to you.”

Damn Will’s mind. His deceiving, stupidly ignorant mind. He feels himself blush at the praise, despite his terror at what he’s hearing and his inexorable effort to _stop._

Half of his brain can’t get enough of what he’s hearing, and the other half is mortified about it. His mind is clashing, and it’s causing him to feel more confused and anxious than he would normally be if he were more stable in this situation.

“Are… are you even human?” Will immediately feel stupid for asking, and sure enough he hears a laugh on the other side of the booth.

“Will,” Hannibal pauses, amusement and admiration in his voice, before suddenly getting impossibly close to the mesh. When he speaks, it feels like he’s standing directly behind him, whispering in his ear, despite him being flush with the wall opposite Hannibal. “I am so much more than human.”

Will sits there, unable to move. He feels paralyzed to his seat. The blood is rushing in his ears again, and he can’t breathe. He hears the other door of the booth open, and footsteps receding.

Hannibal left. He was gone. He left Will here.

That only made him feel inconceivably more paranoid. He wasn’t going to kill him, then—not yet. He was going to wait until Will no longer expected it, and that was somehow worse.

After Will sits there for several minutes, he feels his legs unlock. He can start to move again.

Will gets out, and luckily no one is near him. He walks quickly, head down, and rushes to grab his stuff so he can leave.

He was about to walk out of the door when he bumps into someone. He jumps in surprise and fear, and tries to ignore whoever it was, pushing a quick “Sorry” out before he tried to go around them, but they stop him with a soft touch to his arm.

“Father? Father, are you alright?” he hears a soft spoken, sweet voice say to him, and his head snaps up in surprise as he makes eye contact with Sister Alana Bloom. His only other friend, and most likely not a serial killer. She looks worried—the unknown, wild look in Will’s eyes only raising her concern, and she quickly steps back.

Out of respect or fear, Will can’t really tell.

He closes his eyes for a moment, stepping into another person’s mind for the time being—he always feels terrible afterwards, but it was the only way he could think to deal with Alana without seizing up in terror right now.

When he opens his eyes again, he has a calm and confident smile on his face. Nothing behind his eyes shows anything other than what he wants her to see.

He had chosen Hannibal’s persona.

“Sister, it’s been a while since I’ve seen you. I apologize for my haste, I just realized that I had forgotten about an appointment I had set up today.” Nothing about the sentence was true. He could see her concern, clear on her face and in the gentle wringing of her hands.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You looked like you had seen a ghost. Did something happen?”

He should tell her what he had found out. He should tell her everything—she was in the psychology business before choosing to become a nun—she could help him. She could keep him safe.

Instead, he says, “Simply stuck in my head for a moment, Sister. I promise to you that I am completely well. Sometimes the past creeps up on me—I’m headed to therapy now, for a matter of fact.”

She looks surprised at this. She knows he doesn’t talk about his past. She was the only person in the entire church that knew even a little, and all he had told her was a weak summary of his father’s violent habits. He knew it was cruel to use his past against her, but it was the only plausible excuse for him to look so lost without explaining the real reason he had been running.

“You’re in therapy? Oh, goodness, I’m sorry. I know it must be hard for you. Who’s your therapist?” He was hoping she wouldn’t ask this question. Only one doctor came to mind.

“Doctor Hannibal Lecter. He’s a psychiatrist, recently moved here.” Her eyes light up.

“Doctor Lecter! Oh, he’s just wonderful. I’ve read his article—what was it called? _Evolutionary Origins of Social Exclusion_ , I believe, it was very interesting. Even for a layman. I hear his dinner parties are to die for—he’s supposedly an amazing chef.”

_Yes, I’m sure human flesh is very appetizing when cooked with cranberry sauce and thyme and molded into the shape of a rose._

“Yes, the very same. I haven’t had the pleasure of going to one of his dinner parties, although I had breakfast with him a while back. All homemade, and probably the best sausage I’ve ever had. And you’re barely a layman.” He tries not to think about the pork in the sausage that was most definitely not pork.

“Compared to him I am,” she waits a moment, and neither of them say anything, so she continues. “Well then, Father, I won’t keep you any longer,” Alana smiles at him, and he feels instantly guilty about lying to her so much. She grabs his arm again, just as soft, and lowers her voice. “I’m really happy for you, Will. I like knowing you’re talking to somebody about this.”

He smiles back at her, all charm and confidence, but it’s not his smile. She believes it, though, and that’s all that matters to him right now.

He feels bad for making her think he was getting help. Will knows she cares deeply about him, and lying to her was painful. Right now, however, he couldn’t deal with the truth.

Once he was safely out of her grasp, he basically ran to his car. He kept scanning the small parking lot, out of fear that he would see a shiny black Bentley, but there is none. That only makes him feel marginally better, though, because he was sure Hannibal could get somewhere without having to worry about the hassle of a car, if he wanted to.

He gets to his car, and haphazardly drives home. He thinks he hits the curbs a couple of times, but he doesn’t really care. He still partly had Hannibal’s confident persona in his head, and the other side is him, _his_ persona, was quickly overpowering the calm—instead making him feel skittish, and paranoid.

He gets home, runs up to the door, and shuts it behind him as quickly as he opened it. He makes sure every window is locked, every door is bolted, before collapsing on the ground, his dogs surrounding him and sniffing the fear and desperation he’s feeling.

Throwing off his clothes, because he was sweating through them and he was conscious enough to know he didn’t want the robes to stain, he notices he’s half hard. He chalks it up to the adrenaline, because he was already too overwhelmed to process what _else_ it could possibly mean. He’s heard of things like that happening in traumatizing situations, probably. He means to lie there for just a minute, but the next time he opens his eyes, it’s pitch-black outside and his dogs were asleep near him. Winston had fallen asleep in between his legs, head resting on his knee, and Will feels himself breathing for what feels like the first time since he woke up that morning.

There’s no way he’d be able to sleep now. It’s time to attempt to process what he had just learned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will found out!! Finally!
> 
> I wanted to write a confessional scene between Hanni and Will, but I couldn't think of a way to put it in the way I originally wanted, so I adapted and put it here instead. There might be another confession scene in the future-- I have a couple ideas that I think would fit quite nicely.
> 
> Talk to y'all soon! I'm so glad you're enjoying it so far-- i was not expecting this much of a turn-out when I posted it. It makes me extremely happy!
> 
> Writing this might get a bit slower-- I'm thinking of writing a fluffy Christmas fic for the holidays. I don't celebrate Christmas myself, but I do celebrate Yule and I've still got a strong holiday spirit, plus I love seeing the boys happy and in love, so I might be writing that. If I do, and it's done before Christmas, I'll probably post it. If I end up not writing it, this should continue to be updated fairly often. I'll try to keep it as often as I can either way. Thank you all and much Love!!!


	8. Chapter 8

So—Hannibal kills people. And eats them.

Multiple people, from what Will gathered, which would make him a cannibalistic serial killer.

Hannibal said he wasn’t human. He mentioned bodies drained of blood.

What was he, then? A vampire? A demon? Someone who’s completely human but has an extreme God complex?

Will had known, or at least suspected, that Hannibal was narcissistic. Perhaps even psychopathic. But he had seen emotions in those eyes, real ones, and he had seen moments that Hannibal had seemed genuinely concerned for Will’s being, even if it didn’t affect Hannibal at all.

Will also could tell he was extremely manipulative, which meant all of those emotions could have been false. He really doesn’t think they were, though. Or at least he really hoped they weren’t.

He had killed Abigail and displayed her because he thought Will was like him. That he would understand him. He remembers what he told Jack, about the intended person not even knowing it was for them. How Hannibal had seemed proud of him, just for a moment, and how Will ignored it. He had been his intended. It was a declaration for _him_.

Will has known he was interested in men. He’s known since he was caught giving Jimmie Sanders a kiss on the cheek in elementary school by his father, and how mad he had been about it. He knew he was attracted to girls as well; he’s had girlfriends before he became a priest, but he never let himself indulge in his more eccentric fantasies of men. When he became a priest, the entire concept was no longer an issue anymore, and he had grown to ignore and forget about it.

He had also known he was attracted to Hannibal from the very beginning. He didn’t think about it (because that’s what he’s good at), but he knew. He had tried to disregard the issue for the most part, especially when around Doctor Lecter himself, but he knew his dreams and his subconscious were well aware.

The _dreams._

Hannibal wearing the same damn suit as he had worn in Will’s dream the night before, and _knowing_ Will would recognize it. Saying “I find it perfectly plausible” as if it were something simple. The bite mark that was still irritated on his shoulder, and the bruises that had faded on the inside of his thighs. Things that Will hadn’t been able to explain, until now.

Hannibal wasn’t human. He wasn’t quite sure how to process that, or what to do next. It’s not like he could leave the church, or stop doing sermons. He could always move, but Will had a feeling that Hannibal could easily track him down if he wanted.

He _should_ tell someone. Brother Nick, or Alana, or Agent Crawford. He should definitely tell Agent Crawford.

Tell them what, though? That Hannibal had murdered Abigail Hobbs, and that he was some kind of vampire demon? Even Crawford, who seemed to listen to what Will thought about the crime scenes, would never believe him. Alana seemed to idolize Hannibal and his work, and would most definitely accuse him of losing his faith.

Not to mention the part of Will that doesn’t _want_ to tell them. The same part that had often transformed into different people, evil people, and which easily succumbed to his dark desires. The desires that he had locked up and thrown away the key.

Hannibal seemed to somehow sense those desires, and all of the other dark, not very priestly things that Will hid away in the deepest and darkest part of his subconscious. Things that Will had chosen to forget about the second he became a priest, along with his father’s endeavors. Things that had probably developed _because_ of his father’s endeavors.

Things that he had thought had been left in his past.

Will hadn’t left his house all day. He took the dogs out, stood on the front porch, and then came back in, locking the door tightly once more. He _needed_ to get out, though—he felt like he would go insane if he continued to stew in his thoughts for longer than he already had. He couldn’t go to the church—he doesn’t think he’ll ever feel as comfortable in it as he did two months ago, and he didn’t want to have to act like nothing had happened yesterday.

He could always call Beverly—she probably wouldn’t expect it, if he called her and asked to hang out, but she seemed like the type of person that didn’t ask too many questions. He should make some more friends, anyway.

It takes him a couple of minutes to work up the courage to call her. His mind keeps thinking of excuses, mainly self-deprecating ones. _She gave me her number out of courtesy_ , or _she doesn’t actually want to see me. It would be weird_. And he does think it would be weird, if he called her, but he really couldn’t call anyone else. He just knew he couldn’t stay at his house any longer. So, before he lost the courage, he dialed the number and held the phone up to his ear.

“ _Beverly Katz.”_ She answers.

“Hey, uhm… it’s Will,” he waits, and doesn’t hear an answer back for a few seconds. “Will Graham. From those crime scenes.” He’s already regretting calling, but it was too late. He had said his name.

“ _Oh! Will! Hello! I wasn’t expecting your call.”_

“Yeah,” he laughs lightly. “Me neither. I kind of have a favor. It might be weird,” he pauses. “It’s definitely weird.”

It’s silent on the other end of the line for a second, but then he hears Beverly laugh. “ _Yeah sure, what’s up?”_

“So, I really don’t want to be home right now, I learned some weird news that I can’t really explain yesterday, and I just want to go somewhere but… well, my only friend is a nun named Alana.”

“ _So… what you’re saying is you want to get out of the house and was wondering if I was busy.”_

“Yes, pretty much.”

“ _You wanna take me out on a date, Will Graham?”_ she clears her throat. “ _Sorry, bad joke. You’re a priest.”_

“It’s fine,” Will laughs, and he finds that it’s true. Normally he’d get a little uncomfortable whenever someone made dating jokes with him, but Beverly was clearly someone who joked around a lot, and he found he didn’t mind it. “I’m not exactly dating material. But I appreciate the sentiment.”

“ _Well, I’d love to. I’m with Jimmy and Brian right now, but you’re welcome to join us. We’re all about to go to dinner, at that new bar.”_

Will thinks about it for a moment. He hasn’t been to a bar in years—it’s not exactly his forte, but it’s better than staying here. And it might be fun.

“ _Wait—priests are allowed to go to bars, right?”_

He laughs. “Yes, priests can go to bars. I would love to go. When should I meet you?”

They pick a time, an hour from now, which gives him just enough time to get changed into something other than sweatpants. He chooses the only pair of black jeans that aren’t completely worn through, and a deep red shirt that actually fit him. He throws on a dark gray wool peacoat and considers himself ready. He doesn’t even bother with his hair—the curls go everywhere no matter how he tries to style it, and he’d given up years ago. He just lets it do whatever it wanted to, now.

As he walks the short distance to his car, he gets the sudden irrational fear that Hannibal was out there, waiting. Waiting for him to go further than his porch.

He’s not there, of course. Will feels embarrassed for himself, for being so paranoid about it. He knew Hannibal had left him there yesterday on purpose—he wanted Will to process, and think, and keep himself on edge. Will wouldn’t be surprised if he stopped showing up to Sunday mass. Hannibal wanted him to be afraid.

The bar was new, just opened a month ago. It clearly appealed to the younger generation, with the minimalism and the monochrome. It was classier than Will was expecting, though. Booths lined two out of four walls; the middle had a large wooden dancefloor. The lighting was dimmed, but it was still easy for him to see. The back wall had a large bar with what looked like hundreds of bottles of alcohol. There were small windows high up on the walls, with fake plants that sat on the windowsill, the leaves hanging down and cascading down the black walls. The booths were white, and the lighting mainly consisted of a few crystal chandeliers in the middle of the room, which emitted yellow light that gave the entire room a soft glow. He was, luckily, not over or under-dressed—although, some people had considerably less clothes on.

He finds Beverly, Jimmy, and Brian in the far-left corner booth, closest to the bar. He walks over quickly, avoiding people on the dance floor. Jimmy and Brian were holding hands under the table, which was unexpected, but welcomed. Jimmy saw him first, and waved him over with a welcoming grin.

“Hey! Beverly said you were coming. She said your name and I thought it was you, but I couldn’t be sure—this doesn’t seem like the type of place you’d go to,” he pauses. “No offense, of course. You just—don’t seem like the bar type.”

Will smiles. “I’m not. Trust me. This is nicer than some of the other ones I’ve been to in my lifetime. And I really just needed to get out of the house.”

He notices Jimmy and Brian are still holding hands, and not hiding it from him. He appreciates it—most assume that because he’s a priest that he’s homophobic, which he understands. But it’s not like he can just tell those that are uncomfortable around him because of their sexuality that he could relate. That would probably raise some questions.

Brian grabbed his glass, which was empty, and frowned at it in disappointment. He stood up, breaking hands with Jimmy, and looked him and Beverly.

“I’m gonna go get some more to drink. Anyone want anything?” he looks directly at Will. “Are priests allowed to drink?”

Will laughs. He hears Beverly laugh beside him, because she had asked pretty much the same question on the phone.

“Yes, priests can drink. I’m quite a fan of it, actually,” he looks over at the bar and scans it for a second. “I’ll take whiskey. On the rocks, please.” Brian looks surprised, eyebrows raised, but he doesn’t say anything and walks off when Beverly says her order.

She turns to Will.

“So, I know you said you couldn’t really explain it, but can you at least hint at what has you so bothered? Bothered enough to go to a bar with three people you’ve only met at crime scenes?” Her voice is amused and joking, but he knows she’s genuinely curious. He wishes he could tell her—he really _should_ tell her—but he can’t. For some reason, he doesn’t want to tell anyone, and keep what Hannibal had said a secret. He wants to tell her _something_ , though, so he says the closest thing to the truth that he can.

“Uh… Well, I guess it’s not that big of a deal, really. I’m just not sure how to deal with it quite yet,” he pauses, and she gives a little twist of her hand, telling him to continue. He gives a self-conscious smile. “A good friend of mine admitted some feelings about me that they had. Uhm… romantic ones.”

 _If he could even call it that._ Hannibal did keep calling him his, but that didn’t really mean anything. Who knew if someone like Hannibal was even capable of _feeling_ love, or any other emotion at all.

He sees Brian look up from his phone that he had previously been occupied with, and Beverly let out a loud laugh next to him.

“Oh my God,” she pauses, “Sorry.” He laughs and shrugs at her—even he had a bad habit of using the Lord’s name in vain, a habit from before he became a priest that he had found impossible to break. He’s kept it inside of his head for the most part, but hearing it from her was relieving. She didn’t look that sorry, either.

“Who was it?” she suddenly gasps, and grips his upper arm in a tight grasp. “It was that nun named Alana, wasn’t it? Oh, now _that’s_ good.”

“It was… a guy, actually,” Jimmy comes back with their drinks, and Will gratefully takes a large sip of his before continuing. “A guy who goes to my sermons every week. We had become good friends over the past couple of months—he’s very intelligent, and his conversations are liberating.”

Beverly’s looking at him with shock, now. Jimmy and Brian seem to be holding their breath, waiting for a homophobic comment from Will perhaps, or just wanting him to go into more detail. He didn’t want to tell them that this guy was the same one who consulted on crime scenes for them.

“I’m just a little surprised, and confused, I suppose. He didn’t seem to care if I were a priest or not—I had told him I swore celibacy, and he just laughed and gave me a cryptic metaphor about hedonism.”

Not quite the truth, but he could see it happening in different circumstances. What might have happened if murder and weird vampire creatures weren’t involved.

Jimmy and Brian still seem fairly lost, but Beverly finds the situation awfully amusing. She has her elbows on the table, her face in her hands, as she lets out a loud laugh. Will waits patiently for her to calm down, and when she does she looks over at him.

“Well, I mean… I get where he’s coming from. I believe you should also enjoy life and its pleasures. However, you _did_ swear an oath, and that’s a pretty big thing,” she looks over at Brian and lets out another laugh. “Damn, Will, you have to deal with someone interested in being in a relationship with you, _and_ he’s a guy. Don’t you guys—like—strongly detest that?”

He shakes his head, but mainly just out of disgust and disappointment. “No. Well, yes, but I think that’s ridiculous, really. The Catechism, sacred Catholic text, names homosexuality as ‘intrinsically immoral and contrary to the natural law’ which I think is, pardon me, absolute _bullshit_ ,” He’s had this argument with himself many times, explaining to an invisible someone why it _doesn’t matter._ “It shouldn’t matter who someone wants to fuck. The entire thing is absurd.”

He finds himself getting riled up, and wipes a hand down his face and through his hair. Brian and Jimmy look relieved, if not a little amused at Will’s obviously strong opinion on the subject. Beverly has her eyebrows raised, and looked stunned, an open smile stuck on her face.

“Ha, wow, Will,” she pauses, her eyebrows drop, and her head tilts. “Wait. Are priests even allowed to curse? I mean, I don’t mind of course, I just feel like that would be—well—you know, I’m sorry, I keep asking questions. I just know nothing about priests.”

He rubs another hand down his face, and takes another large drink of the alcohol. It burns a pleasant line down his throat, and even the small amount he’s had helps him feel more relaxed.

“No, we’re technically not. I mean—it’s not directly against the rules or anything, but we’re supposed to be a… a role model to society. And swearing tends to go against that. I don’t really care, though— I’m not exactly the best role model, priest or not.” He doesn’t usually talk this—the drink helps, and he finds that he does genuinely enjoy talking to them. He hopes he can manage to maintain the friendship he can feel budding in-between him and Beverly, and he feels like he could be close to Brian and Jimmy as well. They still seem slightly flabbergasted that he doesn’t agree with everything the Catholic religion teaches.

He turns to the three of them, and tries to change the subject.

“So, enough about me—anything interesting going on in anybody else’s lives?”

Brian looks at Jimmy, and then at Beverly, and starts to speak.

“I’m probably not supposed to tell you this, because you’re not in the FBI, but I’m a little drunk and I trust you enough not to really care,” he pauses, laughs, and continues. “There was another murder yesterday. A body—completely drained of blood. There are no puncture marks or any entry point in the entire body. We’re not sure what happened. All we could tell was that it happened around midday.”

Will feels himself frown, and freeze. He suddenly can’t breathe, but he knows how to control himself enough to not completely out himself in front of everybody.

A body drained of blood. Was it Hannibal? It couldn’t have been—he was at church with Will, completely ruining his life, in the middle of the day. Did he have… superhuman speed or something? _Were there more of them?_

He forces himself to stay focused on those around him.

“That’s… very strange. How does someone drain a body of blood without any puncture wound?” he says. He thinks back in the first dream that he had, when Hannibal had licked the bleeding wounds on his waist and hips. They were healed when he woke up, but not the bruises on his thighs. He hadn’t licked those. Could his saliva somehow heal him? It would explain the lack of cuts on his sides when he woke up—and it would explain the lack of puncture marks on the body. If they had licked them after, that is. Or maybe, if they bit them, it just kind of automatically happened after.

Jimmy speaks up. He was the only completely sober one—he didn’t drink, and therefore was the trio’s permanent designated driver. “We can’t figure it out. I mean—sometimes there’s only a tiny little needle hole, or something, but there’s nothing. Not even a scrape. Their skin was perfectly clean.”

They continue talking about the body for a while—mainly Jimmy and Brian arguing what could have happened, with Beverly joining in every once in a while, but Will stays mainly silent unless a question is directed toward him.

About halfway through the conversation, he had felt eyes on him. He had assumed it was just someone at the bar, maybe trying to get someone to take home with them, but Will couldn’t see anyone looking at him. He then assumed he was just being paranoid—but he knows the feeling of eyes on him, it’s happened since he was young enough to process it, and he knows this isn’t paranoia.

“Hey, guys, I think I’m going to head home. Being around all of these people is making me exhausted,” they all nod at him, asking if he was good to drive. “Yeah, I’m fine, thank you. I’ve driven in much worse situations. Thank you, for having me tonight. It was a lot of fun—more fun than I was expecting it to be.”

“Yeah, it was a lot of fun for us too. We should hang out again, and soon. I want to hear updates on the church guy.” Beverly says, clear amusement in her speech, as he trades phone numbers with Brian and Jimmy.

After exiting, he makes his way quickly to his car. The feeling of someone watching him had lessened, and he didn’t feel as exposed as he had before, so he makes it to his car without going into a sprint.

The second he leaves the property of the bar, it felt like the eyes had stopped. They were gone. He was safe.

Hannibal had been in the same bar, just hidden away, in the private and exclusive back rooms, drinking his fill of pre-drained blood in a wine glass. He had felt Will’s presence, just on the other side of the door, and had smiled.

It would be almost too easy.

He decided to stay quiet, however—he told himself he would only watch, and he did. He watched as Will laughed, a beautiful looking and sounding thing, as he enjoyed his time with those FBI agents, and he saw the blood that had rushed to his face when Beverly whispered something in his ear. He saw Will’s outfit—simple, but fitted, and a large upgrade compared to what he had been wearing at that second crime scene. He looked very dashing in that wool peacoat—it fit him just right, and gave him somewhat of a classy but low-effort look.

He noticed the distinct moment that Will felt eyes on him, and how he had almost immediately made his escape.

Hannibal smiled. _Too easy indeed._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted Will to be a “cooler” priest, if you will. I thought it’d be more canonically correct. I imagine Will, even as a priest, liked to curse, drink bourbon and whiskey, and be a lot more open than normal/stereotypical priests are. He tries to stay as sin-free as he can, but I imagine (given his past and personality), that he would let himself indulge in a few milder things without worry—like cursing.
> 
> Also, I may have put myself in Beverly’s shoes while writing this. Her thoughts were basically my thoughts. What can I say, she was my favorite and she deserved so much better.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! Love all of you guys!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will learns answers to some of his questions:)

Two weeks later, at 8:30 in the morning, Hannibal shows up at Will’s doorstep.

Will had been sleeping. The first time he had slept longer than four hours in weeks, and he wakes up to even knocking on his door. He thinks about throwing actual clothes on—boxers and a white shirt barely counts, but he’s half asleep and couldn’t really care less.

When he opens the door and sees Hannibal, perfectly styled with a calm expression on his face, he instantly regrets not putting more clothes on. And just answering the door in general, really.

Will just stands in the doorway, mouth open, without a clue of what to say or do.

“Hello, Will. May I come in?” Hannibal asks, as if absolutely nothing was wrong, and Will feels anger bubbling up in him. It was mixed with terror and a small relief at seeing Hannibal alive and well (as alive as he could be, he guesses), but it’s mainly just anger. He meets Hannibal’s gaze, and frowns, indignation in his voice, and was probably about to get himself killed.

“No, Hannibal, I don’t think you can. Why are you here?” he says, voice flat. He thinks he sees a small amount of astonished confusion in Hannibal’s eyes, presumably because he wasn’t cowering in fear at his feet. Will was never too good with staying relaxed in moments like these, anyway. It would probably get him killed someday—or today—but it’s kept him alive thus far.

But instead of killing him, Hannibal just smiles. “I understand why you’re upset. But if you stay standing there for long, you’re going to get cold.” he notices Hannibal just mentions Will getting cold, and not himself. He’s wearing a jacket, but it’s too thin to keep him warm. He probably doesn’t even feel the cold, the bastard.

Will continues to stare daggers into Hannibal’s eyes for a few more seconds, before relenting and opening the door wider as an invitation to come in. Hannibal was right—he quickly got too cold. He cautiously turns his back to the doctor in order to grab some better clothes and throw them on over what he was already wearing—he wasn’t going to risk leaving the room, or, God forbid, change _in front of him_.

Hannibal walks confident and composed into the room, and sets down a handheld cooler that Will hadn’t realized he had even been holding. He unzips it, and takes out two sealed containers, similar to the ones he had brought over before. He looks over at Will and gestures to the bowls with a smile.

“I made breakfast. A scramble.”

Will looks at Hannibal, then back at the food, and at Hannibal once again. His eyebrows raise up in shock.

“You made me… another breakfast scramble.”

“Yes. I know you have a difficult time eating breakfast.”

He continues to stare at Hannibal in shock, and isn’t able to completely think about what he says before he says it.

“You’re giving me human meat sausage again, aren’t you?” He says it as a statement, not a question.

“Yours is vegetarian.” Will notices he only says _yours_ , not all. Hannibal’s still has meat.

“You’re not trying to poison me, are you?”

“I would never do that to the food.”

Will believes him. He shouldn’t, but he does. He also doesn’t want to refuse the meal—despite knowing some of the ingredients are less than preferable, Hannibal is a ridiculously good cook, and he can feel his stomach beginning to growl.

So, resigned to sitting at the table with a serial killing vampire creature, he sits down, grabs a fork, and digs in. It’s delicious, of course. He refrains from telling Hannibal that, though, and instead says nothing.

Suddenly, a memory of the night at the bar with Beverly comes rushing to the forefront of Will’s mind. He looks up from his food, and in the general direction of Hannibal’s face, but he doesn’t look him in the eyes. He stares at a boat motor that was leaning on the wall behind him instead.

“Did you kill that person two weeks ago? Drained of blood, not a single puncture mark?” His eyes don’t stray from the motor, and his features are schooled into the flattest expression he could make. He didn’t feel fear, or even sadness for the person who had been killed—just anger.

Hannibal’s silent for a few minutes, and Will starts to think he wasn’t going to get an answer. After five minutes of staring at the motor, food forgotten, he finally speaks up.

“Finish your food, Will, we don’t want it getting cold,” Hannibal says, but Will keeps his eyes trained on the spot just past him. Hannibal takes another bite, chewing slowly, before swallowing. “And no, I did not. That was done by a rogue imbecile. I prefer to drink from more willing sources. And those that I _do_ kill definitely have more than a puncture mark on them, often some organs missing. I know you’ve seen my art, Will.”

Will takes a few moments to process this. He felt illogically relieved that the kill wasn’t done by Hannibal’s hands. Less relieved, however, that he openly admitted to killing more than just Abigail. He had already known that, though, and definitely wasn’t as mitigated when Hannibal mentioned the other killer—the _imbecile_.

“So there are more of you, then. Whatever you are.” He finally looks down. His eyes are dry—he hadn’t been blinking a lot, and he holds them closed for a couple of seconds to get the burning to die down.

“Dear Will, there are hundreds similar to me all over the world.”

He feels his breath stop, and he looks up at Hannibal, making eye contact for the first time since he was invited inside. He feels like he should be more scared—he gets the urge to be scared, deep in his gut, but it’s small and mainly just him forcing it because he knows he should be. He shoves a forkful of food in his mouth and swallows before responding.

“Then why aren’t there more murders with bodies drained of blood?”

Hannibal smiles, then. He seemed pleased that Will was asking questions, and Will had plenty to ask. “Like I said, I prefer to drink my fill from willing recipients, and so do the majority of us. Most bars have hidden backrooms that focus on feeding, and closed to the general public. Willing feeders go in, are drained just before it becomes dangerous, and then they go home to recover before they’re wanted again. The one’s that kill their victims and leave the bodies are either newly turned and out of control, or stupid enough to avoid being careful.”

Will’s surprised that Hannibal is being so open with him, and so far answering all of his questions. He keeps expecting to feel terror, at any moment now, but nothing has come. He feels angry, and inquisitive, and confused—but not scared. There’s a question that’s been weighing on his mind, and he doesn’t know if he even wants it answered. Something in him is inexplicably curious, however, and he can’t help it—

“Do you want to drink from me?”

Hannibal’s face remains completely impassive, but his eyes flash, and he raises his chin at an almost unnoticeable angle. Will’s surprised by how little time it takes before Hannibal answers him, how little hesitation shows.

“More than anything.”

Will finds he can’t break eye contact with Hannibal, now, but he doesn’t really want to. His feels his blood rushing south impossibly quickly, and his breath stutters, mouth opening up slightly and staying that way, and his cheeks heat until they’re pink.

“Are you going to?” He’s not sure what he wants to hear as an answer for this question, either.

Hannibal, who up until now has shown no emotion, inhales deeply through his nose, and closes his eyes. He breathes in, lingering on whatever scent he’s chasing, before letting the breath out slowly and reopening his eyes, which look somehow more fiery red than they usually were. It was just a slight difference, and in any different of lighting or focus Will might not have even noticed. But he did, and he feels the hardness that has been slowly growing in his pants give a jump. He’s gotten used to ignoring it—he barely even notices the feeling of his arousal as he looks at Hannibal’s deep amber eyes, but the warm feeling in his stomach doesn’t go away. The slight narrowing of Hannibal’s eyelids show that he can sense it, too—Will tries not to feel excited about the idea.

Hannibal seems to shake himself out of whatever trance he had been in, because seconds later he’s back to his impassive mask.

“I prefer to feed only on those who consent—some of us prefer to force ourselves, but I’ve never gotten that urge. With consent, the process can be incredibly pleasurable for both parties. It can feel equivalent to being in the throes of orgasm—possibly stronger, depending on the compatibility between the two. The strong release of dopamine and oxytocin for both participants is what most people who volunteer to be fed from are looking for.”

Will thought whatever answer Hannibal would give him would flag the erection that had been steadily growing since the beginning of the conversation. It only seemed to make it worse, however, and now he was utterly and thoroughly hard. He could feel the erection straining against his sleeping trousers, as well as the thin sweatpants he had thrown on on top of the boxers. His mind unhelpfully supplies him with the imagine of Hannibal drinking from Will by his carotid artery, both of them feeling pleasure stronger than any orgasm, and his pants get steadily more uncomfortable. Hannibal entirely focused on the blood draining from Will’s neck, a furrow between his brows and eyes closed, and Will with his head thrown back, mouth gaping in a gasp and eyes shut in ecstasy, one arm reaching for the wall above him and the other carding through Hannibal’s hair.

The pressure against his cock was nice at the beginning, but quickly just became painful as Will became infinitely more and more needy. By the dilation in Hannibal’s eyes —which also seem to continue getting more and more red— he had noticed Will’s desperation. He doesn’t act on it though, seemingly content in watching Will slowly lose all sanity he had been trying to maintain.

They sit there in complete silence for a while. After a few minutes, Will is capable of picking up his fork again, and he continues to eat despite him losing all appetite for food quite a while ago. Hannibal had finished his food, and was silently and patiently waiting until Will’s bowl was completely empty.

Once they were both done, Hannibal gets out of the chair to go to the sink and begins cleaning the bowls. Will continues to sit at his small table, watching quietly and openly while Hannibal grabs the soaps and lathers up the dishes.

“So you can still eat regular food? Not just blood or human meat?” Hannibal looks up at him for just a second, no emotion on his face, before he looks back down to continue cleaning.

“It doesn’t give me quite the same satisfaction or sustainability as it would for you, but it’s still very enjoyable to taste. I’ve always been a fan of delicious food.”

Will hums, nodding his head in understanding, and waits a few minutes until he asks his next question. Hannibal had almost finished the dishes, and Will was curious what was going to happen now.

“What even are you? A vampire? Some other blood drinking demon?” he hears a laugh from the sink, a delighted and amused one, but he had turned his attention to the boat motor again—it was a lot easier to stare at that.

“I guess vampire would be the closest word to explain it, but I wouldn’t be so gauche as to call myself one,” Hannibal waves his hand holding a knife, and Will looks back towards him. “I, personally, love garlic. And I have no issues with the sun. I don’t sleep in a coffin—I much prefer silk sheets and a sizeable mattress,” he pauses, and Will is taken aback by the sudden humorous responses. Hannibal is smirking, and that plus the light-hearted humor, makes Will a little weak in the knees. “Although—I suppose I am immortal, and I heal quicker than most, as long as I have fresh blood in me. My eyes get red when I’m hungry, and I do have some telepathic abilities.”

Will thinks about this for another couple of minutes. He’s once again surprised that Hannibal is being so open with him—it’s somehow keeping him grounded, the suspense of not knowing being much more frightening, and he still doesn’t feel the fear he keeps expecting.

The telepathic abilities give him pause. He thinks of all those moments when he had thought something and could have sworn he had seen a response in Hannibal’s face. It would explain it all, all of those little things he hadn’t thought about before.

“I don’t like that you’re able to see into my mind.”

“I only do it if I need to—I can turn it off, and the majority of the time I see no point. Your mind is absorbing, though, Will. I can never entirely predict you.”

He feels himself blush.

“Are you doing it right now?”

“No. I try to keep myself from reading you too deeply—I like you voluntarily telling me of your life or what you’re thinking. If you focus enough, you will be able to tell if I’m in your mind—it’s like a small probing feeling, right in the back of your brain.”

“I would prefer it if you kept yourself out of my head unless I gave you explicit permission to do otherwise.” He expects Hannibal to disregard him, comment on how he could do anything he wants, so he’s surprised when he instead says,

“Of course, Will. Whatever you like.”

His eyes snap up to meet Hannibal’s, who had been staring intently at Will ever since he finished the dishes, and was leaning against the counter behind him. Nothing in his eyes gives away anything other than sincerity and affection—nothing to tell if he was lying, but he finds that—somehow—he trusts that Hannibal is telling the truth. He whispers a quiet _thank you_ but can’t make himself say anything else for a few minutes, mind racing.

A question suddenly springs to mind that he’s embarrassed to ask but he knows he must.

“My dreams that I had—was that you? Were you controlling them? Did they… actually happen?” he sees Hannibal breath in another deep sigh.

“Yes, I was controlling them. And no, they didn’t officially happen, but anything that left a physical mark did appear on your skin—I’m sure you’ve noticed.” He says the last part with a smirk, and Will feels his cheeks flush the deepest red yet. To think that Hannibal had seen and heard Will lose control in that way, even in a dream, was… exciting, and titillating, and obscenely erotic. Not to mention lethally embarrassing.

Hannibal knows the effect this has on Will, and his smirk widens, but Will already has another question on the tip of his tongue.

“Your saliva, when you... when you licked the cuts on my side—does it have healing properties? Or like the body drained of blood—it had no puncture wounds.”

Hannibal looks delighted that Will had put it together so quickly, and his smirk turns into a grin. Will definitely doesn’t think about how nice it looks on the doctor’s face.

“Will, my clever boy, I will forever cherish your mind,” Hannibal croons, and Will feels the red in his face get impossibly darker at hearing him being called _his_. “But yes—with age and practice, we can learn to direct our quick healing into others, using our saliva or blood. It takes a lot of effort but can be very worth it.”

Will looks—and feels—impossibly curious by this revelation, despite already kind of knowing it beforehand. Hearing it from the source makes everything more real, and his minds racing with all of the different possibilities that open up with this news.

Will stands up, planning on refilling his coffee cup, but before he can do so much as pick up the mug, his knees buckle out from under him. He feels himself falling, and lets out a surprised cry, preparing himself for the inevitable and sudden pain, but it never comes.

Before he can hit the ground, arms are grabbing him from underneath both his own arms, and lifting him up until his feet were back on the ground. Hannibal’s hands steady him for a second, holding him by the waist until they’re sure he won’t fall over again, and then slowly let him go. He feels the urge to lean back against the chest that he knows is there, but he manages to refrain, and instead he turns around to look at Hannibal with a tilted head, frowning in slight confusion.

“Let me guess—you’re unnaturally fast, too?” he shakes his head and grins.

“When it benefits me, yes.” Hannibal is looking down at him with an unreadable expression, still standing noticeably close to him. Will’s a few inches shorter than him, and his posture is significantly worse, so he has to tilt his head up slightly to look him in the eyes.

“And how did catching me benefit you?” he asks, mainly just curious to see what the answer would be.

“I didn’t want you hurt.” Hannibal says, facial expression suddenly much more open than it was a few seconds ago. Will looks in his eyes, seeing concern, carefulness, and perhaps a bit of smugness at being able to show off. He tries to distinguish real emotions versus what’s part of the mask, but can’t see anything ingenuine.

“Well… Thank you, anyhow. That was weird, I'm not sure why it happened.”

Hannibal’s face returns to its mainly unreadable mask, but there’s still a hint of concern bleeding around the edges. Will wonders if Hannibal is showing it on purpose or if Will is simply getting better at reading him. He privately hopes it’s the latter.

“You’ve learned quite a bit today, and gained lots of previously unknown and unheard-of information. Your brain is exhausted, and was unable to process that you were standing before it was too late. Common, after large stresses. You should rest.”

He supposes that makes sense. He’s sure at least a small part of why he feels so calm is due to adrenaline, and now that he actually thinks about it, he does feel exhausted.

“That might be a good idea. You’re not going to stay and watch over me as I slumber, are you?” he jokes, but realizes that it kind of sounds like an actual question, and hopes Hannibal is smart enough to realize it was meant to be nothing more than a jest.

Luckily, he is.

“Tempting. But I'm afraid I must leave you to sleep in peace. I have a few patients to attend to.”

He says a quick goodbye, already taking off the flannel he had thrown on over his white shirt, and is back in bed the second Hannibal closes the door behind him.

It’s not until he’s seconds away from sleep when he realizes he never felt scared during the breakfast with Hannibal, and that he, not even once, thought about his priesthood, or staying away from sin as he usually forced himself to do.

His last thought before the throes of sleep overtake him is ‘ _Hannibal is the entirety of sin, and yet I can’t seem to stay away.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never really noticed how little words I use in my everyday vocabulary until I attempt to write Hannibal's dialogue. The amount of times I've used a thesaurus for words that I should have automatically known, instead of using the same form of "supposed" several hundred times, is getting kind of sad. Maybe by the end of this I'll have the vocab greater than the equivalent of a six year old, as I currently do.
> 
> Anyway, I love y'all!! Your comments make me smile so damn hard, and they're so insanely appreciated.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of like this chapter-- I wrote it at three in the morning while half asleep, though, so who knows lol

Christmas was coming up, and Will still hasn’t planned a Sunday school activity like he does every year.

With everything going on, he completely forgot that it was the holiday season. Every year, Brother Nick forced Will to do a Sunday school Christmas themed activity with the kids, and it was always terrible. Will had to plan his activity weeks in advance in order to keep things from all going to hell, but with everything going on, Christmas had been the least of his worries. Hannibal telling him he was some sort of vampire ruined any regular Christian spirit he might have had—he knows Christmas was originally a pagan holiday anyway, but he did used to enjoy the spirit of Saint Nick and Jesus. He can’t imagine it’d ever feel the same again, knowing what he knows and feeling how he feels.

He also remembered that he hasn’t prayed in several days when he woke up this morning. Surprised that he forgot, and figuring it was a good start to the holiday planning, he tried getting on his knees and saying a prayer, but it didn’t feel right. It didn’t calm him like it used to, and talking to air made him feel ridiculous. He kept getting sidetracked, and fading off in the middle of a sentence. He had the sudden thought that no one was listening to him, and he stopped. His guilt for feeling these things strongly accumulated, but he couldn’t find it in himself to really _care_.

He needed a distraction—something to help him relax, and give him time to think and get his thoughts straightened out. Thinking of the last time he had gone fishing, he decides to go to his favorite fishing spot—a small lake an hour or so from him, stocked with fish and often free of people. He could worry about the holidays later.

Throwing some old clothes on, he grabs his waders, tackle box full of his lures, and his favorite fishing pole, and heads out to the small lake.

Will has always loved fishing. The quiet of the streams, nothing but rushing water and the sounds of nature surrounding him, was calming. Even when people surrounded him, he wasn’t expected to speak or interact with them at all—the quieter they were, the more fish they would attract. He had brought his dogs, once, but all they did was splash through the water and run through the woods, so they haven’t been back since.

He had offered to bring Alana a couple of months back, but she had refused—fishing knee deep in a somewhat rapid current wasn’t exactly her idea of a relaxing activity, and Will couldn’t blame her. He had been secretly relieved that she had turned him down. Attempting to keep people entertained while fishing when they didn’t normally fish was exhausting, and Alana was so serene already. She didn’t need fishing to make her relax—she had church, prayer, and her nunhood happily by her side. Something Will was _supposed_ to have, had sworn to have, but lately he hasn’t felt it. Whenever he thought about church his mind immediately strayed to Hannibal telling him of his creaturehood in the confessional booth, and the suit that could only be associated with the dream of Hannibal grinding against him the night before.

Every single day, Will was feeling less and less holy. Hannibal had taken up each one of his conscious and subconscious thoughts, thoughts that originally had been occupied by sermon planning and guiltily non-platonic thoughts of Alana. Now it was of the memories of dreams, fantasies of Hannibal drinking from him in his _own church_ , and immediate repulsiveness at himself when those thoughts came to mind. Also, a very unhealthy dose of shoving thoughts down until they inevitably combust inside of him and cause a very unexpected and unknown reaction. Will’s not looking forward to the day when that happens.

Will thought that having somewhat inappropriate thoughts of Alana had been blasphemy—he couldn’t even begin to imagine how ungodly his thoughts of Hannibal were. Sure, Alana was a nun, but Hannibal was a male serial killer, who also happened to be a vampire and enjoyed regularly eating the flesh of those who offended him. Alana being a nun was extremely unbelievably tame to that, really.

Will had never planned on being a priest when he was a kid. His mother had been religious, and he had gone to a Catholic church up until he was six, until his mother died. His dad was much less religious, and Will had forgotten entirely about his religious upbringing—instead being raised with illegal dealings and suspicious disappearances of his dad’s colleagues.

When he had finally gotten out of his father’s grip, he worked a few minimum wage jobs. His longest lasting had been at a Louisiana state park cleaning kayaks and canoes during spring and summer, paperwork in winter. That’s where he had met Nick, a priest from Virginia who was coming to visit some relatives. He had immediately taken a liking to him, and spoke to him daily as Nick camped with his family in their campsite. They had spoken of many things, and Nick explained the concept of sin and redemption and faith—he had seemed so serene, and so satisfied with his existence. It got Will thinking about what he could be, and with an invite from Nick, he moved to Virginia to study Divinity and start his journey of priesthood.

It took him a while to actually start to believe the things he had been learning—up until that point, he had just been really convincing in faking it. He started to actually believe what he was preaching, and began to find fulfillment in what he had.

Now that he knew creatures like Hannibal existed though, he really didn’t know what to believe. He had no clue what he thought about the whole thing—all of his past doubts had rushed back up with a worrying rapidity. Praying no longer felt like a relief—it felt like a burden, and an inconvenience, and lacked all sense of dignity. When he thought of getting down on his knees and submitting to a God with no proof of existence, he felt preposterous, hysterical, and pathetic. Talking to air seemed to be a waste, and he felt nothing positive after he had finished his rosary like he used to.

The only thing he really knew was real anymore was Hannibal—maybe not his personality, or his beliefs, but Will no longer doubted what Hannibal was, what he needed in order to survive. He hadn’t doubted it since last night, when Hannibal had openly explained to him all of the questions he had asked, without hesitation or regret.

All of his hidden and unacknowledged fantasies that he had buried long ago came rushing back up to the surface whenever Hannibal was near him. Even when he wasn’t, the mere thought of the vampire brought sacrilegious and sodomitic musings to the forefront of his head—thoughts that, even when Wil had been in the midst of his father’s business, were too unnaturally savage to entertain. He thought of blood, and murder, and violence. He imagined ripping someone’s neck out with his teeth purely because he believed they deserved it, and _enjoying_ it. Killing someone with Hannibal, together, slaying them with sadism and animality, displaying the body after they were done in a beautiful mural, complete with blood splatters and hidden meanings. Showing Agent Crawford what real beauty was, how they had elevated someone up, _together_. Then, once they were done and in the safety of their home, and covered in someone else’s blood, giving into their pure carnality with one another. Losing themselves, just for the night, and waking up the next morning with secrets held on their tongues and unspoken promises in their breath.

Yet, after thoughts like those, he imagined domesticity. Love. Decorating for Christmas, going ornament shopping and travelling the world. Cooking together, laughing together, spending nights doing nothing but lounging in front of the fireplace with wine glasses in hands. Holding each other in a tight embrace after a long day, or for no reason at all other than to feel the other’s touch. Laughing at inside jokes, and goofing around for no reason, and going on dates.

He imagines all of these things with Hannibal, doing them together, and he can see it. He can see it happening, if he were to let go of himself, all of the things that he had worked so hard to become, and just _release_ it. Relinquish that which had been blocking the wall of darkness shoved deep down inside of himself.

He can’t imagine, even if Hannibal suddenly decided to suddenly leave him alone, that he would ever be able to go back to the way he was. He had been perfectly content with forcing himself to remember his beliefs, happy to fake anything until the real perception replaced the pretender. He also doesn’t believe he would ever be able to convince himself that he wanted Hannibal to leave. He didn’t, and he knew he didn’t, despite his denial. The only time he would accept Hannibal leaving now is if Will were coming with him.

The thought should have scared him—and partly, it did. But the majority of him was happy to finally truly _trust_ himself and what he was feeling. None of it was fake, or forced. Even if the thoughts he was having—the desires, the fantasies of murder—weren’t exactly what he knows should be enjoyable, a large part of him does enjoy it. He loves knowing that he finally didn’t have to fake it until he made himself believe what he wanted to believe.

He wanted Hannibal. He wanted everything that came with him, because even after knowing what he had done, he never truly felt alive until he was around him. Even before, their conversations had been the most liberating thing Will had ever had the pleasure of experiencing, and Will doesn’t think he’d ever be able to get enough of it. Despite the guilt that he felt for his flock, and Brother Nick, and Sister Alana, and the truly wonderful things he had experienced at his church, all of them paled to even the simple _thought_ of being with Hannibal in every way. Experiencing all that he could experience, even if he ended up dying by Hannibal’s hand.

Even then—he would want it. He would rather die from Hannibal than any other, because he knew Hannibal would make it sweet, and would care for him the way Will would want. The way both of them wanted. He wouldn’t let himself get killed any other way. And he wouldn’t let Hannibal get killed unless it were by his own hands. They were linked, and neither of them would ever be able to break the connection.

Will had been in the stream for several hours. It was midafternoon when he finally got back home, and let the dogs out before beginning to prepare his dinner from his catch.

Halfway through eating dinner, a knock sounds on his door. He automatically thinks it’s Hannibal—it has the same polite sound—but when he opens the door, he’s visually surprised that it was Alana.

“Alana, hello! I wasn’t expecting you.” He smiles at her, putting on a mask, and lets her in with a wave.

“I tried calling—you didn’t pick up. I was already on my way by the time I had remembered to call, though, so I figured I might as well take a trip up here anyway.” She smiles at him back, a pretty smile. He used to think about that smile often, with the lightest shade of pink lipstick staining her lips, and teeth well taken care of. He had always enjoyed her smiles.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I took a fishing trip today, no cell service up there—I just recently returned myself. Want some dinner? I have plenty left over.”

“Oh, no thank you, I had some food while driving up here. How have you been?”

There’s lots of ways he could answer that question. He doesn’t suppose he could tell her that he had just come to a revelation about all of his deepest and darkest fantasies, or that he was probably going to get excommunicated from the church very soon. _Or_ that he had just admitted to himself about having feelings for a male vampire serial killer. Instead, he goes for the simple and positive answer.

“I’m doing good, actually. Really good,” he pauses, before finally processing that Alana had actually showed up to his house. She never does that unless she thinks something is wrong. “I don’t mean to be rude, but… is there anything wrong? As to why you’re here?”

“Well, I haven’t seen you at the church at all lately, except for your scheduled masses. Even then you rush out right when they’re over. You used to come by every couple of days, and stay to talk to people after mass. I’m starting to worry.”

He knew she was right. And there wasn’t an excuse that he could tell her that would be good enough. He didn’t want to worry her or do anything to her—she’s been his only friend since he became a priest, and the idea of making her worry about him sent a sorrowful feeling through his gut. The best he could do was worry her about doubts—something that he should have, but doesn’t.

“I know… I’ve been—having doubts. Nothing too serious, but it’s made me… hesitant, to show my face at church,” he sees her face go from worried about him to relieved, and back to worried, although for a different and understandable reason. He put on an anxious facial expression. “I feel like everyone will immediately be able to tell.”

She immediately looked more sympathetic. She had helped him through rough patches before, but he had never skipped out on going to church—she figured this one was bad, and would take a lot more than a simple pep talk to get through. Will wasn’t looking forward to the inevitable moment she sees how fucked up he is, and always has been—he was just better at forcing himself to forget about it, before. Hannibal had dug up all that he had forced down in just a couple of weeks, and there was no forgetting about it anymore. It was fully and completely a part of him now.

“Oh, Will. You could have come to me about it, you know I’d love to help you in any way I can,” she grips his upper arms, their usual substitution of a hug, and he gives her a tight-lipped smile. “Is there… any specific reason? I figured, now that you were in therapy, that you might become more stable in your beliefs than you ever have been. Doctor Lecter’s not… making you rethink things, is he?”

Oh, if it were only that simple, dear Alana.

“No, no. Of course not. Doctor Lecter’s been… one of the steadiest things in my life, lately. I feel better mentally than I think I ever have—clearer. Less confused. I just—just having lots of questions, I guess. Questions that can’t really be answered by anyone else.”

“Alright. I understand—it happens to all of us, and sometimes all we can do is to keep moving forward,” he smiles at her again. He’s always appreciated how easy she was to talk to—if he said she wouldn’t be able to answer his questions, she believed him and didn’t push. “I’m glad Doctor Lecter is helping you so much. But I can’t help but be worried about his practices. I have this friend, Margot, who used to be a patient of his. She said he had some… less than conventional methods. And you… you seem different. More sure of yourself, yes, but also… darker. There’s a look in your eyes that’s almost sinister. I noticed it last time I saw you, after service, but... it’s worse, now.” She kept eye contact with him throughout her entire speech, a deeply concerned look etched across her face.

Will hadn’t thought she could read him that well. It _would_ make sense, though. She was a psychologist before she became a nun, and had worked with family trauma—he was sure she was well aware of the look of darkness she said he had. He also knew that she had worked with at least one serial killer in her extremely short time with law enforcement. Her ability to connect problems and assume things was always good, and he should’ve been more careful.

“I’ve been working with a lot of problems with my past—issues that I used to have and how I’d pushed them down until they seemingly didn’t bother me. They did bother me, though. Terribly. Doctor Lecter is helping me work through my history and all of the problems I had shoved deep down. I admit,” he paused for a second, schooling his features into a guilty and careful expression, grabbing Alana by her arms to reciprocate her earlier embrace. “It could affect me to act a bit more differently—learning to live with those issues, and make them a part of me rather than shoving them down and causing myself to have more issues long-term. I had regressed memories that I’ve recovered from childhood that, if I had remembered them then, would have affected me heavily. I’m still me, though, Alana. Just… not as repressed as I had forced myself to be.”

She seemed to accept that answer, and pulled him into a full embrace—something that had only happened one other time, when Will had seen his father’s death on the news. It hadn’t been a surprise to him, and he felt that he wasn’t even upset, even slightly relieved. Alana, however, had a wonderful relationship with both of her parents and could never imagine not being heartbroken over a parent’s death, and she had hugged him deeply. He hugged her back, feeling tension release in his back that he didn’t even know he had.

He was glad, at this moment, for his empathy disorder. It had always made him a wonderful liar. He had gotten so used to acting as someone he wasn’t that lying came effortlessly to him. And Alana’s hugs, while rare, were comforting and soothing in a way that nothing else ever was—she was a calm and stable rock.

And he may just be a _tad_ touch starved.

Nevertheless, the hug lasted a few seconds before Will broke away first, a convincingly real tear falling from his eye.

“You know I care for you, Will. I consider you a part of my family.” She wipes the tea from his cheek with the sleeve of her thin pullover, smiling lightly but authentically.

“I know.” Will smiles at her, a completely genuine one this time.

Alana’s still trying to get the tears that had started gathering to disappear when another knock sounds at the door. This one had the same politely quiet thump that Alana’s had, which means it was most likely the same person he had originally thought was at his door. Which was _extremely_ bad timing, because he had no way to fill Hannibal in on what he had been lying to Alana about. He could only hope he would choose this moment to search through Alana’s brain.

Alana looks up at him in confusion—she knew he didn’t have many other friends and there were an extremely limited number of people who could be knocking at his door at the moment. He gave her a clueless look, as if he didn’t already know who was on the other side of the door.

He opens the door and greets Hannibal in a way that would—hopefully—show him and his ridiculously strong observational skills that he was acting for somebody.

“Doctor Lecter! What a wonderful surprise, come on in,” Hannibal looks surprised, but not confused, and he quickly slips on a pleasantly relaxed facial expression when he noticed Will’s words and tone of choice. As Will figured he would, he had perfectly crafted an open mask for the unknown reason he had referred to Hannibal with his title.

As Hannibal was hanging up his coat by the door, Alana came out from the kitchen to see who had been at the door. Hannibal noticed her before Will did, as Will was facing away from the kitchen and desperately trying to explain to Hannibal what was happening from facial expression alone. He noticed Hannibal looking just past his shoulder, and turned around to Alana, who had a pleasant but guarded smile plastered on her face.

“Doctor Lecter, let me introduce you to my dear friend Alana—Alana, this is Doctor Lecter, my therapist.” He looked at Hannibal for the last few words, but Hannibal showed no change in expression. He held his hand out to Alana with a pleasant greeting, and she shook his hand.

“Alana Bloom. I’ve heard wonderful things about you, Doctor Lecter. Your article on social exclusion was absolutely fascinating, and Will here says you’ve been a huge help at therapy.” Alana said. She had always been very good at introducing herself to others—she always seemed to know just what to say to make someone preen with confidence, without seeming like she was purposefully wheedling. Hannibal smiles at her, also wonderful at charming new people, with a smile full of comfortable confidence and peacefulness.

“And Will is a joy to have in therapy. His mind is riveting.” Hannibal says, and Will is instantly more comfortable. He’s glad that Hannibal was able to catch on so quickly, and willing to play the part of Will’s therapist for the time being.

Alana laughs and shakes her head, glancing at Will with raised eyebrows as she says “Yep, I’ve been trying to tell him that for years. Maybe he’ll actually listen to me this time, now that he has you.” Both of them laugh, and Will would normally be vexed that they were talking about him like he wasn’t standing right there, but he really couldn’t be bothered. Hannibal was acting like the perfect, professional psychiatrist, and not like the narcissistically charming vampire that he had been just the day before.

“So Doctor Lecter,” Will spoke up, interrupting the two’s favorite subject to talk about—himself. Hannibal looks at him with curious eyebrows, and a small part of Will is pleased he was no longer smiling at Alana. The two of them laughing with each other sent an unpleasant note of jealousy down Will’s spine. He didn’t know who he was jealous about. Perhaps a mixture of both. “What brings you here today? I didn’t miss an appointment, did I?” He smirks at Hannibal, a challenge to see just how good of a liar he was.

Hannibal’s eyes light up, seeing the almost unnoticeable smirk in Will’s smile with unnatural ability, and smiles pleasantly at him before responding.

“No, no appointment has been missed. I had called your phone a few times regarding some questions I had for you, but you never picked up. I’ll admit, I don’t usually do house calls for my patients when they miss a phone call, but you’re usually so good about it, I admittedly got quite worried. I was already in the area, so I decided to come and check in on you. I see now you were just entertaining a friend. I apologize if I interrupted anything too important.” He smiles at the both of them, then, and Alana clearly approves of Hannibal. It was like all worries that she had of him (which were, to be fair, mainly true) had completely disappeared, and only charm and approval were left in its wake.

Hannibal hadn’t called him, of course. He didn’t even have Will’s phone number—Will had his, on the business card, but he was never able to make himself call. And when Hannibal wanted something, Will had learned he usually just showed up. He _was_ curious why Hannibal was really here, but maybe if he stays until Alana leaves, he’ll be able to find out.

“Apparently I need to start paying more attention to my missed calls—that’s why Alana is here, as well,” he walks into the kitchen, and Hannibal and Alana both follow him until he reaches the dining table. “I had gone fishing for a couple hours today—I have no cell service there. That must’ve been when both of you tried to get ahold of me. I have some fish roasted up, Doctor, if you’re hungry. I know you’re a wonderful chef, so I’m sure this is subpar for you, but I would like to think it’s edible, if not satisfying.” He gives Hannibal a private smile, the joke of what _exactly_ Hannibal like to cook flowing between them, Alana completely clueless to the nonverbal communication.

Hannibal accepts, and Will fills a plate with a seasoned fish and some sauteed mushrooms, before setting it down in front of him and handing him a clean fork. Hannibal had mentioned enjoying food despite the lack of satisfaction, and he made a pleased face after swallowing a bite of the fish. Will, starting to be able to read Hannibal’s micro expressions, could tell it was mostly, if not all, sincere, and he wasn’t just entertaining Will to be polite in front of Alana. It sent a pleasant tingle down Will’s back—he smiles, pleased that Hannibal approved of something Will had caught and cooked himself, before Hannibal spoke up again.

“I would love to have you over for one of my dinner parties, Miss Bloom, with Will of course. I’m having one next week, actually—I can send the information to Will if either of you are interested in attending.”

Alana, delighted that she had the chance to attend one of Doctor Lecter’s famous dinner parties, quickly accepted the invitation. Will hesitated, knowing what Hannibal was likely serving these innocent people at the dinner table, before accepting with a grateful smile. Hannibal appraised him, then; he had obviously passed some kind of unspoken test. He had given in to Hannibal though, and he knew what kind of meat he would be eating. The dark part of him delighted at the chance to knowingly ingest something so sacred, and forbidden. He wonders who the special guest was going to be.

The rest of the gathering passed pleasantly, Alana and Hannibal talking about psychology for the large majority. Will was content with watching the two of them converse with each other—his old forbidden crush, and his new one. Hannibal cleaned the entire plate, not even skipping a single mushroom, and Will was causelessly thrilled about it.

Alana left first, like Will hoped she would have. Hannibal made the excuse of an impromptu therapy session in order to stay behind, which she looked satisfied with. She shook hands with Hannibal, saying she looked forward to the dinner party, and grabbed Will’s arms in their embrace once again, smiling at him and making him promise to show his face at church soon, to which he made eye contact with Hannibal as he said “I have no reason not to go, I know. Expect to see me there soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is currently the last chapter that I have finished, and therefore the updates will be getting a bit slower. Once i finish one and reread it, I'll post it, but I'll admit I'm in a bit of a writers block at the moment so I don't have a specific date.
> 
> Unfortunately my house has been a disaster in the mental health department lately (I'm home from college for the holidays! Yay!) and when I'm in this type of environment it's pretty difficult to get into the writing mood without it being an entire pile of mush.
> 
> I WILL be continuing this, for sure! Just might be a couple days before I finish and post the next chapter-- keep a heads up!
> 
> Thank all of you so much for all of the wonderful comments-- reading them puts a smile on my face and they're so very appreciated. I love all of you!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: sexual content this chapter! also a slight mention of cannabis in the end notes-- not in the chapter, though.
> 
> Hannibal and Will share some of their feelings.

It was quiet for a few minutes with just the two of them. Hannibal sat at the kitchen table while patiently waiting for Will to finish washing the dishes, both waiting for the other to speak.

Will was looking forward to the moment Alana decided to leave, just so he could be alone and talk freely with the vampire. But now that the time was here, he had no clue what to say, or how to start the conversation to lead to what he had been thinking of before.

“Did you get enough rest yesterday, Will?”

Will looks up from the last dish he had been drying, and meets Hannibal’s eyes. “Yes, thank you. I fell asleep pretty much the second my head hit the pillow. I didn’t even have any nightmares.”

Hannibal smiles at him, and he feels himself smiling in return. It’s silent for a few more minutes, and he stays standing in the kitchen despite the dishes being done and counters cleaned.

“You know… when you first told me what you were, I expected that I would be forever terrified of your presence. I thought I’d be a lot more scared of you than I feel.” Will admits. It was the only thing he could think of to say in order to fill the silence that, while not uncomfortable, wasn’t what he wanted.

“How do you feel?” Hannibal asks, an unfamiliar and curious tilt to his voice. His eyes, as usual, don’t give Will much to go by other than the slightest hint of interest. He waits a few minutes to answer, trying to think of a way to put all of his feelings and desires into a sentence. He knows how he feels, but he doesn’t think there’s any way to truly put it into the right words.

“I feel… conflicted, morally. Intrigued, and curious, and desirous. Completely and entirely nonplussed with handling this situation, and how to deal with Alana and the church. Deliberating how to tell Brother Nick that I’m not as holy as he thought I was. Maybe even a little angry and betrayed,” he pauses, just for a moment, and breathes in. “But not scared. Somehow.”

Hannibal nods his head, but doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t need to.

“How did you and Alana become friends?”

“We met at the church—she’s a nun,” he thought about mentioning his short-term crush he admittedly had on her, but thought against it. “Earlier she mentioned that her friend was one of your patients… Margot?”

Hannibal nods his head, and his eyes shine with joy. “Yes, Margot was a wonderful client of mine. Her thoughts on her brother were highly entertaining to listen to and influence. I was disappointed when she no longer needed my help.”

“She said you had some unconventional treatment methods. What did you do? And what thoughts on her brother?”

Hannibal grinned with a reminiscent smile.

“Ah, yes. Well, Margot was in therapy because she attempted to kill her brother,” Will’s eyebrows shot up—he hadn’t expected that. “Which I considered entirely acceptable. He was abysmally disrespectful and vulgar. I had no issues watching him die—so I told her simply to try, try again.”

He sits there for a few seconds, processing everything before responding.

“And did she?”

“Try to murder her brother again? Yes, she did. I even helped her.”

_Of course he did. That wasn’t a surprise._

“How did she do it?”

“She wanted a Verger baby of her own—”

“Wait. Verger? Like the Verger estate family?”

“The very same. Anyway—she wanted a baby of her own, and so I helped her obtain some of Mason’s sperm while he was asleep,” Will avoided thinking of how he managed that one. He was a surgeon before, at any rate—he was quite sure of his ability to locate the prostate. “and then her and her girlfriend pushed him into a vat of eels.”

Will feels his eyebrows raise again. They must be floating above his forehead, at this rate. That is… quite the way to go.

“I’m surprised Alana is friends with her—not that Alana’s not accepting of backgrounds, because she is, just… she’s so unproblematic, all of the time. I can’t imagine her being close to someone like that. Although,” he pauses, eyebrows dropping into a frown. “She is friends with me. I guess I can’t say anything. I’m sitting in the kitchen pleasantly talking about murder with a vampire who feeds humans other humans just to see what would happen.”

Hannibal’s eyes flash with amusement, but that’s basically the extent of his facial expressions. To Will it feels like a large grin, and he feels joy flitter through his stomach. It’s silent for a few more minutes—Will keeps himself busy by petting all of his dogs individually; he feels Hannibal staring unwavering at him, but he keeps himself from glancing up. He feels like he needs to say something, though. So he does.

“I thought a lot today, while I was out fishing. About… everything, really.” He continues avoiding Hannibal’s eyes—he doesn’t think he’d be able to focus on them right now anyway. He feels jittery and tense—more than usual, anyway.

“And what conclusions have you come to?” Hannibal says, and the gaze on him gets impossibly sharper. If Hannibal’s eyes had lasers in them, they’d probably have burned a hole straight through him at this point.

“I didn’t have a very good father. He kept a roof over my head, food for me to eat, but otherwise… he was too busy doing illegal business to deal with me much more. I would listen to the news and hear his colleagues he had been working with for months had suddenly gone missing—until their bodies undoubtedly showed up a few weeks later, and then I’d see that on the news too. My dad was the only one who never seemed to magically disappear.” he breathes, straightens his back, and starts again. He still avoids Hannibal’s eyes, but its more because of the recollection of memories than the purposeful avoiding as it was before.

“He never tried to hide the crimes he did from me. If I asked, he would have told me, but I didn’t want to ask. Not because it scared me, but because I was revolted. Revolted at how he disposed of the bodies; how he would just throw them in a random lake a few states away. I thought that—even if he murdered people—he could at least make it _worth_ it… at least make it beautiful,” He finally meets Hannibal’s eyes, who is rapturously listening to what Will is telling him. “My empathy has always made it easy to read people—my own father included. It might also be the reason I’ve always been more open with death than I have with life. You’re the only one I have ever met that—when I look at you—everything is silent in my head. It’s both extremely relieving and entirely worrisome. Since the moment I met you, I’ve never been able to read more than what you allow me to see,” his eyes continue to stare deeply into Hannibal’s, whose were both equally fixated and dazed. “And yet—the only thing I can currently think is how desperately I want to see you lose control.”

He hears an inhale, but he’s not sure who it comes from. He thinks Hannibal, but he can’t be certain—he hadn’t quite meant to say that last thing.

“What you’re saying is dangerous, you know. I could kill you right now—I would, if I completely lost control.” Hannibal’s eyes had started to turn that deep red again. It was much less chilling this time. In fact, Will was pretty sure it just made the warm feeling slowly trailing down his spine since Alana had left amplify. If this was their idea of dirty talk it… wasn’t very conventional, but definitely worked. It was like a light had been switched on deep in Will’s gut.

“But you won’t. Hurt me, that is. Not any more than you know I’d be able to handle.” He’s not sure where the sudden burst of confidence has come from. He’s also not sure why he wasn’t running in fear after looking at Hannibal’s eyes consistently turn a deeper red (quite the opposite, in fact). In both instances, he doesn’t mind it, and desperately hopes that they continue.

“Do you want me to? Hurt you?” there’s a desperate look in Hannibal’s eyes, like he’s been waiting for this his entire undead life. Will finds he doesn’t have to strain himself to agree.

“There’s lots of things I’d be okay with you doing to me right now.” God, he’s such a mess. This is what years of sworn celibacy has done to him—he sounds (and feels) unbelievably desperate. And look at that, one comment from Hannibal and it’s all being thrown out of the window.

Will blinks, and suddenly Hannibal is standing directly in front of him, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and dragging their lips together. It was rough, and not at all sweet, but perfect and _exactly_ what Will hadn’t known he desperately needed until now. Teeth clash, and Will thinks his bottom lip splits at the sudden pressure. By Hannibal’s sudden groan and relentless attention to the lip, Will believes he might have thought right.

It’s not at all smooth, and that’s mainly Will’s fault. He’s never been the best at kissing, and his years of celibacy definitely don’t do much to help, but he tries, and is being graciously rewarded because of it. Hannibal’s left hand has circled his neck to cup the back of his head, pulling at the hair near the nape of his neck, and _oh my God_ why hadn’t he discovered how wonderful hair pulling was until now? He’s missed out on so much!

His other hand trails down to hold Will by the curve of his waist, and his fingernails desperately dig into his skin, just hard enough to break the uppermost layer of the skin but not enough to cause bleeding.

Hannibal’s tongue is smooth as he maps out the entirety of Will’s mouth. It’s obscene, and sloppy, and Will can taste the faint tanginess of iron—presumably from his own split lip. It arouses him more than it probably should. He groans and pushes himself closer to Hannibal until they were as close as they could be, considering how many layers of clothing were on them.

And who needs these many clothes, anyway?

He hasn’t quite figured what to do with his hands yet—they’ve just been holding Hannibal’s jacket collar. He decides to put them to use, pushing his sleeves down until the jacket carelessly falls to the floor, and _wow_ he’s just as firm as he had imagined—and dreamed, somewhat. He runs his hands down Hannibal’s clothed chest, and settles both hands near the belt loops on his much-too-fancy pants.

He’s somehow managed to keep kissing Hannibal throughout the jacket ordeal, and Hannibal breaks off to trail kisses down Will’s jaw, nipping at his pulse point. Will had never really liked people touching his neck—it wasn’t that he was ticklish there, it just made him get the chills and was generally an unpleasant experience. Hannibal’s cool hand was resting on the back of his neck though, and along with the sharp nips down his neck, his knees were beginning to get a bit weak. Of course Hannibal was the exception to yet another thing.

Hannibal’s nose trails along Will’s carotid, inhaling every scent that he possibly could.

“You smell divine, Will. Your scent is like a mix of every pleasurable thing I have ever had the gift of enjoying.” Hannibal whispers, the beginning of a groan cutting off the last word. Will is disappointed in how _in-control_ Hannibal sounds, and tries to think of a way that was sure to make him lose some of that well-preserved mask of restraint he had perfected over the years.

“Han-Hannibal,” he gasps. He’s slightly embarrassed at the voice crack, but Hannibal seems to like it—he grasps Will’s hair harder, making Will lean his head back and leaving his neck exposed and vulnerable. Hannibal isn’t even kissing him anymore, just obsessively sniffing at the nape of his neck like a dog who had caught the scent of his favorite treat. “I want you to—bite me. Drink from me. I don’t care, I just want you to do it.”

The grip in his hear gets impossibly tighter, and he thinks his hair will start to rip out if he moves at all, so he doesn’t. He stands still and controlled by Hannibal’s hand in his hair, and feels himself whimper when impossibly sharp teeth graze his Adams apple. He hears a growl come from the throat of the man above him, and _God_ that almost makes him come untouched in his pants.

Hannibal rips himself away from Will’s neck before forcing the smaller man to meet his eyes—which were now bright red, like the color of fresh blood.

“I’m worried that when I start, I won’t be able to stop.”

This is the first time Hannibal had shown Will any actual vulnerability, and of course it had to be because Will was begging to be drank from. Typical. He feels his eyes soften without his permission, and he moves his right hand from Hannibal’s hip to hold his cheek in an odd and unknown careful caress. He feels the light stubble against his palm and wants to feel more, so he runs his thumb across Hannibal’s cheek. Hannibal looks a bit lost during this transaction, and Will feels just as helpless, but neither make any moves to pull away. In fact, all Will says is, “I trust you.” Which, somehow, he completely believes.

This seems to be good enough for Hannibal, as he immediately leans back down to nuzzle Will’s neck once again. He feels a sharp pain in his carotid, and the feeling of blood being sucked out of him. It felt worryingly like giving blood—he had expected a painful drag, but instead all he feels is the slow lull of his blood being steadily drained from him. Hannibal groans from above Will, and now he thinks he _does_ pull a few hairs out, but the strong grip on his neck only adds to the list of sensations he’s continuously feeling. It’s almost too much—he feels like all of the sensations are going to clash and overwhelm him, but it never comes. The pain from the bite and the hair pulling, the pleasure of Hannibal’s saliva mixing with his and his blood, and the slow pull coming from his neck—it all mixes together to create an incredibly addicting sensation. He feels like he could live in this feeling forever.

He doesn’t realize how continuous he’s moaning, or how he continues to get louder and louder. He feels like he’s in a different world entirely, and whatever comes out of his mouth happen completely against his control. He faintly hears Hannibal growling above him, a possessive and absolutely exquisite sound, and he thinks they’re grinding against each other, slowly and passionately.

Will feels his entire body shudder before suddenly he’s coming, untouched and wonderfully. It’s almost agonizing, the amount of pleasure and pain he’s currently feeling—he couldn’t formulate a sentence even if he wanted to try.

Hannibal pulls back and off of Will when he notices him go completely slack in his hands, barely conscious but still awake and very much not dead. Will feels impossibly relaxed, and sated, and absolutely _wonderful_ , and Hannibal feels the same. He was right—Will’s blood had been divine, and Hannibal wanted to devour the entirety of him.

Will’s body is heavy as he helps him into bed, where he lays him down and helps him take off his shirt until he’s in nothing but loose pants. He looks absolutely ravaged—hair a mess, neck bloody and bruised, fingerprint marks on his waist— and Hannibal wants this image forever imprinted on the back of his eyelids, and he puts it in one of the main rooms in his memory palace.

Will, though conscious enough to smile at Hannibal, quickly falls into a deep sleep. Hannibal debates leaving, but quickly decides it when he looks over at Will again—he would much rather be here to see him wake up, and make him breakfast, because he was certain Will would neglect feeding himself even after losing a fairly large amount the night before. He wishes he could get Will to eat now, but he knew there was no way he would be able to manage that, and lets him sleep instead.

Hannibal doesn’t need to sleep, but he can. He takes off his clothes until he’s left with his undershirt and shorts—he wishes he had brought a change of pajamas, maybe that silk pair he had bought for Will, but he hadn’t exactly _planned_ for this to happen.

Hannibal lays next to Will, barely touching but for their arms and knees, and promptly falls asleep.

Both sleep better than either of them ever had—not a single nightmare or dream of any kind, or random spouts of energy throughout the night. In the morning they wake up tangled together like a carnival pretzel—Will on Hannibal’s chest, arm splayed across his stomach until it was hanging off the opposite side of the bed; their legs braided together, and Hannibal’s left hand subconsciously petting through Will’s hair or down his spine. They said quiet good mornings, but not much else; the silence was comfortable and welcome.

Neither wanted to get up that morning. They weren’t going to, either; until Hannibal unexpectedly got a call from Jack Crawford requesting his assistance and Will got a text from Beverly begging him to drive to a specific address—and to bring his crime scene eyes with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may or may not have written the majority of this and posted it while very high, so hopefully it's alright. Next chapters scene might also be completely unhinged-- my brain tends to be fairly morbid when under the influence, and I still want to write a bit more before it wears off, so who knows how that will end up.
> 
> Love all of you! Hopefully I will be posting another chapter fairly soon!


	12. Chapter 12

Will and Hannibal, after a few minutes of deliberating, decided to take the Bentley to the scene—they were planning on staying with each other for the day anyway, and if both of them were supposed to be there, they might as well show up together. There was a _very_ small chance they would see Alana there, so they could use having had an appointment as an excuse if they needed to.

When they pulled up to the crime scene, there were several cars there—Hannibal chose to park near the back and walk. Will had seen a Winston hair on the back of Hannibal’s jacket despite them having used a roller on it. He debated picking it off or telling him about it, but decided not to. It was a small reminder than Hannibal had really been with him last night, and the sight of it made him smile.

Beverly walked up to him the second he crossed the tape, prompting him to follow her. Jimmy and Brian wave hellos on the other side of the scene, and he smiles slightly and hesitantly waves back. It felt strange to actually be acknowledged by multiple people on the scene. He barely even noticed Agent Crawford—Jack, Hannibal informed him—and his bolstering yells of greeting in the background. He pats Hannibal’s arm before dutifully following Beverly and letting the doctor deal with Jack alone. He can swear he can feel a burning glare in his back, and he wants to laugh, but he doesn’t turn around and instead schools his expression into his normal social situation face—closed off, quietly hateful, and definitely mean. It’s worked fairly well for him thus far.

Looking at the scene from afar, he could tell it was going to be bloody. Most of the scenes that he seems to be around these days have been.

At first, it just looks like a regular dead body. A middle-aged woman, pale and blonde, lie naked on the leaf-covered ground. Will couldn’t see any wounds or bruises on her body but a two-inch slice right above her heart. It was clean of blood, and the slice was clearly done by a scalpel—the cut was perfectly done. Pushed down into the cut was what looked like a playing card.

Upon closer inspection, Will saw that the card was _not_ for Texas Hold ‘Em like he had thought, but instead was a Tarot card—the Empress, sitting upside down in the chest of the corpse.

“D’ya know anything about tarot, Will?” Beverly asks, in a tone that implies she definitely doesn’t expect him to. She would expect right.

“I had a few friends whose parents were supposed psychics when I lived in Louisiana. They would try to read my palm and tell me the age that I died. They would pull my card and give me a dramatic retelling of something that was ‘destined’ to happen. But I was never the biggest fan.” He reminisces at the memories, the nostalgic hope and/or dread that what they were telling him would someday come true.

“Well, Zeller’s aunt used to read cards and according to him, the Empress is used fairly often to represent motherhood and nurturing care. That’s not even the weirdest part,” Beverly says, and walks him over to the other side of the scene, where a heart is sitting precariously in a circle of leaves. “Her body was drained of blood—completely bone dry. There’s a trail of blood leading from here to the body. We’re assuming it’s hers. I don’t know where the heart could have come from.”

Will looks down at the heart for a few minutes, and closes his eyes. The pendulum in his mind swings back and forth, and all background noises fade away until it’s just him and the body.

The killer loved her. He loved her so much, and she loved him back—for a while. He was finally free from an unknown hell he had been in before he met her, and was willing to spend the rest of his life with her. He had gone to tell her of his feelings, but something got in the way. Or someone. She fell in love with someone else, and while she still cared deeply for him, the feelings he had would never be reciprocated.

He walks up closer to the body. Now that he knows about the blood, he can see the crimson shimmer that it left on the leaves and dirt. The woman had fresh stretchmarks all along her stomach—a sign of recent childbirth. The child could have belonged to _either_ the killer or the unknown lover—he didn’t care, though. He wanted to have the baby for himself. He wanted this woman to be his forever, so he had killed her and left her with a card to remind her forever of her motherly love.

“That’s her heart,” he speaks up, before he even notices he’s doing it. Brian and Jimmy are standing beside him, now. He hadn’t even noticed them walk up. Hannibal was standing a few feet away from the scene, talking with Jack.

Beverly looks at him with disbelief. “How? There aren’t any other puncture wounds on the body other than the two-inch slice into her chest—not big enough to remove her entire heart, and only barely possible to drain all of her blood from.”

He knew exactly what kind of person could have done it. He looks up and locks eyes with Hannibal, who had clearly been listening in on their conversation. Jack finally recognized Will’s presence, now that he had something useful for the crime scene. He explained his theory on the background of the lady and the killer to Jack, who seemed to accept his ideas and think on them.

“Are they the same person who declared their admiration at the church? Could this be who they had been declaring to?” Jack asked, and Will almost laughed. He couldn’t hold back a smile, and a quick glance to Hannibal who met his gaze with equally amused and intrigued eyes.

“No, this wasn’t them. I don’t know how they managed to get the heart out—no true way of saying. But I guarantee if you did a DNA test on the heart it would match.”

“You know Will, you don’t even work for the FBI and yet you give us answers quicker than anybody on the team. If it weren’t such a hassle to get an untrained and uneducated guy with no experience on the team, I would offer you a job right here.” Jack said, and Will was about to respond with whatever he could think of first, but Hannibal beat him to it.

“I consider Will anything but uneducated. In fact, I’m positive he’s more educated than a large majority of your team.” Will blushed from the praise, about to defend Jacks employment skills, but Jack just laughed and nodded his head.

“I’m not completely untrained—before I became an official priest I double majored in forensic science and Divinity, and I went through police training but stopped there. I never did anything with the major—I just thought it was interesting.” He had said it purely to show Jack he was wrong, but he also said it to Hannibal. He saw admiration and commendation there, and it sent a shiver down his spine.

“Well, that’s definitely better than nothing. If you ever need a second job, or the whole… priest thing falls through, give me a call.” Jack raises his eyebrows at him, before walking off and dismissing everyone from the scene with a shout.

He didn’t know whether what Jack had offered him was an… alright thing to do. Is it offensive to offer a priest another job in case this one ‘falls through’?

To be fair, it was entirely relevant. There was a good chance his current occupation _would_ fall through. And a job as a consultant for crime scenes may be perfect for who he had been involved with, as of late. Hannibal was a consultant for the FBI as well, in fact. It could benefit the both of them.

 _This is ridiculous,_ he thinks. A bachelor’s degree and six months of torturing himself through police academy didn’t mean anything. It’s just a nice… second option, he supposes. In case he ever needs it. If Jack was even being serious, which he probably wasn’t. It was just hopeful thinking.

Hannibal looks as if he’d rather be anywhere but still here, but Will stays and talks with Beverly and Jimmy for a while—Brian was off collecting the remaining evidence from the scene, and was about finished. Hannibal entertains Will’s wants by quietly observing him converse with Beverly, who was currently energetically telling him a story of the time her and Brian found a live bird sutured inside of a dead woman. He could feel Hannibal’s eyes staring holes through his back, and soon he found that he really couldn’t focus on anything Beverly was saying.

Well, that was until she paused and said, “Hey—Will. What ever happened to that guy that liked you at your church?”

His eyes basically bulge out of his eye sockets, and his cheeks quickly turn a red deeper than a tomato. A cherry, maybe. It’s like he can _feel_ the amusement radiating off of Hannibal behind him, and he knew if he turned around all he’d see would be a facial expression more smug than any other he’s seen thus far. He starts to shake his head _no_ , and then thinks against it, so he continues to stand there silently until someone else decided to make a move.

Beverly stares at Will, quietly laughing but also refraining from saying anything. Jimmy and Brian are looking in-between each other, confused at the sudden silence. Hannibal is still patronizingly silent behind Will, and he’s surprised Beverly hasn’t put two and two together yet.

“Ahaha… uhm, that’s not too important right now, I’ll tell you about it later,” he laughs, and normally he’s a good liar, but right now he can’t seem to do much of anything other than blabber on. “Anyway, we should go. I’ve got an appointment.”

He walks off without any other goodbye, and basically runs until he settles down into the passenger seat of Hannibal’s Bentley. He hears Hannibal excuse himself and follow him, still frustratingly silent, until he sits in the driver’s side of his car.

Hannibal is silent for a few moments while he starts the car, and Will think’s he might not say anything. He _hopes_ he won’t say anything.

“Would you like to come back to my house? I can make us lunch.” Hannibal asks, and Will is grateful. He might yet get away with this.

“Lunch sounds great, yeah.”

“Who was it that Beverly mentioned?” Hannibal asks, with—damn him—nothing but curious innocence in his voice. Will knows exactly what he’s trying to do, the manipulative bastard, but it’s not going to work.

“You know exactly who she was asking about.”

“You told her that I liked you?”

“…It was the day after you told me what you were. I went to a bar with her, Brian, and Jimmy, and she asked me why I was so distraught. I couldn’t tell her what _actually_ happened, so I just told her that you asked me out and I didn’t know what to do,” he pauses. “I didn’t say who you were, though. I figured if she knew you knew each other, it could get weird.”

Hannibal chuckles.

“You wouldn’t be wrong—I do happen to ‘like you’ quite a bit. And I was aware that you went to the bar with them. I was there.”

Will turns to him, mouth open. “What? What do you mean you were there?”

“Exactly what I said. The bar has a backroom for people of my kind, where we can get our food from feeders. I was there, and sensed you were too.” Hannibal says, calmy and with eyes never straying from the road. Will shakes his head.

“I knew I could sense someone looking at me. I was terrified.”

“I know. It was quite enjoyable to watch.”

Will shakes his head again, but doesn’t say anything in response. He felt a little frustrated that Hannibal had purposefully made him paranoid, but it’s not as if it was surprising. He had expected a lot more paranoia, in fact. Having it only happen that one time without his knowledge was more surprising.

The rest of the side is mainly silent, and Will finds himself drifting off, leaned against the window. He was surprised Hannibal hadn’t called him out for leaving marks on the glass yet.

He’s awoken from his doze with Hannibal reaching across him to take his seatbelt off and push it back. He grumbles, groggy after being woken up, but Hannibal ignores him in favor of brushing his curls away from his face with his fingers. He feels himself inexplicably drawn in towards Hannibal, and they stare at each other with unblinking eyes.

“This is so wrong.” Will says, quiet and breathy.

“Many things in the world are wrong. That doesn’t mean humans refrain from doing them.” Hannibal replies, equally quiet but with much more control than Will feels is possible. He looks away first.

“You say humans like you don’t consider yourself one.”

“Those that know of me call me many things, but human is not generally one of them. Undead, perhaps. Monster seems to be the most frequent.” Hannibal says it as if it doesn’t affect him at all, and maybe it doesn’t. But Will doesn’t like it, and he frowns.

“You are many things, Hannibal. But you’re no monster. I have met many monsters in my life.”

“You don’t consider someone who not only feeds on those to survive but also kills purely because they want to a monster? Not to mention I don’t age. I’m aware of what I am, Will. I am a licensed psychiatrist, after all.”

“You may do some… well, a lot of bad things. But it’s not like you can avoid sustenance. And you only kill those who you believe deserve it. Monsters tend to kill anyone who gets in their way just for the Hell of it. If you were truly a monster, you would’ve killed me long ago. But you haven’t hurt me, Hannibal,” he paused, and for an unknown reason he feels desperately obligated to prove to Hannibal that he _wasn’t_ a monster, despite every definition of the word matching him. “And I don’t think you will. Not unless I asked you to.”

Hannibal doesn’t say anything else for a long period of time. It’s not until they had gotten out of the car and walked into the kitchen, Will sitting at the breakfast bar and Hannibal washing his hands in preparation for food, that he responds. He’s looking away from him, and for the first time Will gets the sense that he’s unsure of what he’s about to say.

“I would kill anybody who ever dared to lay a hand on you, Will. Without a second thought.”

Will supposes it’s not supposed to be a romantic gesture, but it feels like it is. He blushes like it is, and he’s deeply and darkly flattered by it. He also knows Hannibal is being completely genuine. If he had anyone, even just a name—Hannibal would find them. Without a doubt, he would hunt them down if Will asked.

“I know.” _I would do the same for you_ , he thinks, but doesn’t say. Even if he did say, it would most likely hold no meaning. If they managed to hurt Hannibal, Will had basically no chance.

“Would you prefer a vegetarian meal?” Hannibal asks him, and Will almost responds with a resolute _no_ but decides he should probably think about the situation before rushing headfirst into it. Hannibal is asking him whether he wants human meat or not, which is definitely a question he should entertain before answering.

It’s not like he _hasn’t_ eaten human meat yet. Hannibal had served it to him before, and it had been delicious. He wouldn’t be breaking a moral rule if he had already broken it. And it really was delicious, despite it being human.

“No, that’s alright.” He says, and Hannibal smiles at him, sincerely proud and cheerful.

A few hours later, now just past one, Will is told by Hannibal to go sit in the dining room. A few seconds later, Hannibal follows him in holding two bowls of stew, meat and vegetable and an array of spices mixed throughout, placed next to a couple of perilously decorated potatoes. It smelt wonderful, and Will inhaled.

“Boeuf Bourguignon and Dauphinoise Potatoes. Simple, and very warming in the winter.”

Will thanks him with a smile and digs in. It’s delicious, of course. The Chianti in the broth added a delicious savory flavor—it was probably the best bourguignon he’d ever had, and tells Hannibal this, who smiles in gratitude.

“Can I ask you a weird question?” Will asks, a few minutes into the meal.

“Of course, Will. You may ask me any questions you wish.”

“Do you get warmer? Like you said with the soup, or anything?” It’s another one of those questions that he feels idiotic while asking, but he _is_ genuinely curious.

“My body temperature is the warmest directly after feeding. Warm foods can warm by body to an extent, and physical contact can warm me on the outside. For the most part however,” Hannibal says, and reaches his palm up to place on Will’s cheek. It wasn’t freezing cold, but colder than a normal hand would be. It made Will shiver, but he couldn’t tell if that was from the temperature or the touch itself. “I am always fairly cold.” Will leans into the touch, and they stay in that position for a few seconds. He finds himself desperately wishing the feeling of Hannibal’s palm against his cheek could last forever.

Maybe he’s a tad touch starved. Well, he’s definitely touch starved, he’s just never quite noticed how much he was missing until now. He wants to be touching Hannibal _always_ , and intimately, like he’s never touched anyone else before in his life. He feels like cuddling with Hannibal on a bed would be just as emotionally gratifying as the sex would be, and that was new. He never used to be the kind to enjoy physical touch—it was more of a necessity than a pleasurable affair.

The coolness of Hannibal’s skin is more relaxing than he imagined it would be, as well. He’s always been on the warmer side when it came to body temperature, and Hannibal’s skin felt soothing and smooth. He wanted to always be able to touch it—and he supposes he could. There’s nothing stopping him other than his own mind and general morality. But when had he ever truly listened to those and been truly happy anyway?

After their late lunch, Will decides to go back home. He hadn’t planned to be away from his dogs for longer than a couple of hours. Hannibal said he should stay home rather than go back to Will’s—he had a few patients early in the morning the next day. Will had offered to just get a taxi, but was denied by the vampire, who decided he would drive him back despite it being a two hour round trip. He insisted that he didn’t mind.

“I’ve spent much more time on much less valuable things, Will. I would be delighted to. Spending more time with you is a pleasure that I hope can happen for an everlasting period.” He sounded genuinely sincere, so Will had relented. Of course he had. He had learned not too long ago that he would relent to an impossible number of things that involved Hannibal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I very much so unconsciously made Will a huge teddy-bear. Don't worry, Hannibal feels just as romantic and cheesy! I just cannot seem to be able to write his pov well enough to truly show it.
> 
> It's pretty late now but will get started working on the next chapter probably tomorrow! Thanks for being so kind in the comments and patient with the slightly longer and more unknown updates!
> 
> Love y'all!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not re-read or edited, so if there are mistakes I apologize!

Will wakes up to a phone call. He answers it without looking at the caller i.d. with a grunt.

“We’re getting breakfast. Get up.”

“…Beverly?”

“Yes, Beverly. I have questions, and you need to eat more. Where do you want to meet?”

“Uhm…” Will sits up, glancing around in a half-awake daze for pants and a sweater. It felt as if the heater in his house had stopped in the middle of the night, and he was shivering from the cold. He was surprised it hadn’t woken him up earlier. “Do you have anywhere in mind?” He didn’t. It’s not like he goes to breakfast often, and even less when he’s forced to go by an oddly energetic forensic scientist.

“Wonderful, I was hoping you’d say that. There’s a café near you that I’ve been wanting to try—it’s called _Caffe Amouri._ Heard of it?”

“Yeah, I have. Haven’t tried it. Do they have croissants?” Will said, the first conscious thought of the morning. He really wanted a croissant; it’s been a while since he’d had one.

 _Hannibal probably made delicious croissants,_ he thought. _Maybe I’ll ask him to make some._

“Yes, they have croissants. Plain, chocolate filled, or ham and cheese. Take your pick. I expect to see you there in forty-five minutes.” Beverly said, before promptly hanging up.

After he got out of the shower, he throws on the first pair of clean pants that he could find and a green sweater his ex-girlfriend had given him for Christmas years back. He had thought of throwing it away, but Molly had always been good at shopping, and the sweater was warm and comfortable, so he had kept it. It should take him fifteen or so minutes to get there, so he didn’t waste any more time and got in the car, driving to his destination with the help of the map on his phone. He knew the general direction of the place, and had probably driven past it, but didn’t know the specifics, and didn’t want to risk getting himself lost.

When he got there, he could see Beverly already sitting at a table through the window. She didn’t look as put together as usual, most likely due to the painful hours of the morning, but she was dressed in her normal work outfit that he never seems to see her out of. She was probably going to go straight to work after breakfast.

He walked up to the counter and ordered a ham and cheese croissant and black coffee. Beverly had already ordered her food, so he just paid for his and went to sit down.

“Hey, Will.”

“Hello Beverly.” Will said. He was nervous about what she wanted to talk about—he was fairly certain it had to do with his flustered and panicky answer to her question yesterday. At least Hannibal weren’t here this morning to witness his blustering, this time. Especially since he was probably going to have to tell her who the mystery man was, unless she had already put two and two together.

“How was your appointment?” She asks, and he thinks back to the lunch. Knowingly ingesting human meat, and then staring into a vampire’s eyes for much too long to be considered polite. The feeling of Hannibal’s hand on his cheek. The tension that he had felt, had known Hannibal had felt, but ignored in favor of conversation and patience. They had plenty of time in the future, unless Hannibal suddenly got sick of him and decided he would be better dead.

Even if that happened, they would always somehow be together. Will would make sure of that. Even if it was just in spirit, or from his own blood running through Hannibal’s veins.

“It was good. Therapy with Doctor Lecter actually seems to be helping with my empathy—usually, doctors just want me as a patient so they can study me. He probably does too, but he also actively tries to help.” His empathy _has_ been better lately, but he thinks it’s mainly because he’s getting better at giving into those thoughts rather than learning to handle them. Being around Hannibal helps too, because he knows his empathy can only read a percentage of what’s going on in Hannibal’s mind—and that percentage is usually spent on trying to work out his impossibly miniscule facial expressions. He likes to think he’s one of the few that can actually see what he’s feeling through those diminutive changes, whether by the change of the light in his eyes or the slight upturn of his mouth.

“How long have you been his patient?”

“A few months, not very long. Longer than other therapists I’ve had.”

“How did you meet him?” She said, and there it is. The fated question. He knew she suspected something, she had that forensic agent look in her eyes, inquisitive and questioning.

He weighed lying to her. He trusted her—not with everything, but as a general friend, he knew she was a good one. She wouldn’t judge. Might be a little confused, a little cautious, but she was smart. She was going to find out somehow, either as a friend or at another crime scene. And lying to her now may ruin any change of a lasting friendship between them in the future. He’s never been very sociable, has never cared to have many friends, but he likes Beverly. He can see himself actually getting close with her—she was intelligent, cheeky, and full of wit, and it was refreshing to talk to someone like that outside of the church. He didn’t want to risk losing that. Now that he was probably going to be excommunicated, either because he gets caught or because he’s stupid enough to tell Brother Nick that he was planning on leaving, it was more important than ever. He would most likely lose Alana, even if she tried to stay around near the beginning. But he knew he couldn’t stay. Even if he stopped talking to Hannibal right this moment, he knew the peace he had gotten used to was over. He had knowingly participated in cannibalism, after all, and it was delicious. He also knew he would do it again, and likely soon.

“I met him at church.”

Her eyebrows raise, and her mind, as quick as it is, puts everything together.

“Doctor Lecter’s the guy from your church?” There’s an unfairly large amount of amusement in her tone, and it’s making Will unconsciously smile.

“Uhm… Yeah, yes. He’s the guy from church.”

“And you’re… his patient now?”

No more lying. Not about this, anyway. He definitely wasn’t about to go tell her Hannibal was also a serial killer and a vampire, and that if he ever gave you food it probably had human meat in it, but _this_ he could be honest with her about.

“No. I’m not really his patient.”

She doesn’t seem surprised at this, but Will could tell it wasn’t completely expected.

“So are you… with him now, or what?” She says, and he doesn’t really know how to answer. Are they considered to be _together_? Or what are they? Friends with benefits? Was it even possible to be in a romantic relationship with someone who was immortal when you, yourself, weren’t?

“I… guess so. It’s not labeled or anything. It just kind of happened. I didn’t even really notice it was happening until it had already been done.”

“So you’ve had sex with him?” It’s so nonchalant. He’s not used to people being so open about it. He feels himself blush.

“Uhm, no. No, I haven’t had sex with him. I _have_ done some other things with him. But not sex.” He says, and saying it out loud only makes it more real.

“And you being a priest doesn’t affect this at all?” Ah, there it was. He knew it was coming. He still didn’t want to answer it.

“I’ve never been… very religious. I met Brother Nick while he was camping with his family at a state park I worked at in my sophomore year of college. We talked about religion, about his priesthood, and I wanted that peace that he seemed to feel. I was raised Catholic before my mom died, and I had no definitive idea of what to do with my life, so I decided to go for it,” he paused, and he expects her to say something, but she doesn’t. He continues. “I knew I was at least bisexual, but I’ve never exactly been a relationship magnet, so the celibacy thing wasn’t a problem for me at the beginning. I’ve always been good at acting, and for the first few years that’s all I did. I faked it. I did what I had to do, spoke my sermons, gave people advice, but in the privacy of my own room I wasn’t the same person. It was only when I was 26 that I started to believe the things I was preaching. I began to feel the peace that I had been hoping for, the quiet and stable and scheduled life that I had wanted. And it was like that for four years, until very recently.

“When I met Hannibal, he was the only person looking at me during my sermon—most people preferred to lower their head in prayer rather than look directly at me, and I wasn’t used to it. It made me uncomfortable at first, the constant gaze of someone else on me. At the end of every sermon, I go down and talk to those who had watched, and Hannibal and I spoke. He’s very intelligent, but at first seemed very empty, and it was intriguing. I felt myself yearn for a friend, which had never really happened. And then things just kind of… progressed. I tried to control it, but it was like I couldn’t. The part of me that tried to stop was miniscule compared to everything else in me begging to just let go and continue. And now I’m back to square one, when I’m only pretending to be holy when I’m needed at church, and the rest of me lives a completely different existence.”

Beverly stared at him, gaping and obviously surprised but listening intently and thinking about what he had said. It was his first time ever explaining to someone about the subject, and he felt both overwhelmed and relieved. His coffee had arrived during his speech, along with his toasted croissant, and he enjoys them while he waits for Beverly to process and respond. The coffee is a dark roast, and well made; the croissant melts in his mouth, the ham is obviously fresh, and he wonders why he hadn’t gone here before.

“That’s… well, I’m glad you’re letting yourself be happy. I see too many people who don’t let themself be themselves these days. And you deserve it. Even if it does get you excommunicated.” She smiles and laughs at that last part, clearly a joke, but they both know there’s a lot of truth to it.

“To be honest, I don’t know how long I would have lasted anyway. My day-to-day life was so consistent that sometimes I’d feel as if I’d become a ghost, forced to live out the same day for the rest of eternity. Hannibal showing up when he did was… almost perfect timing.” He said, a serious response to a not-so-serious concern. She smiles at him, but doesn’t say anything in response. He knows she accepts what he says, and he’s glad he was able to become friends with her. Having to explain this to Alana would have had a much different reaction. She would have given him advice on how to get back into the holy spirit, and would attempt to get him to stop seeing Hannibal no matter how much she liked him. She wouldn’t joke about it, and she would be overly sweet.

The rest of their breakfast is spent mainly conversing Beverly’s love life—or lack thereof, as she calls it.

“My last girlfriend was great, but… she couldn’t handle what I did for a living. Thought it was weird that I thoroughly searched serial killers’ belongings, which I get, but it was too much for her. I’ve been on a couple dates since, but nothing has stuck.” She says, and Will tries to give her advice, but he’s not the best at it. The only advice he can give are his rehearsed lines of prayer and faith, which he doubts will help at all in this situation. He decides to sit back and let her vent freely to him instead, relaxing and enjoying his coffee and the endings of his croissant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hadn't quite meant to go this long without uploading, and I wanted a bit more meat in this chapter, but I just kind of wrote until I couldn't write anymore and saw where it led me. I hope you guys have been good! The holidays and the weather (and my parents lmao) have been keeping me more than busy, so I haven't had much energy or time to write as much as I would like. also, I HATE WRITERS BLOCK!!! why does it have to exist???
> 
> See y'all soon, love you all!


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